R.I. receives $350,000 in training grants

Rhode Island will receive $350,000 of the $6.7 million in job-training grants handed out to 14 states on Thursday by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The grants will fund apprenticeships and training centers for underrepresented or disadvantaged people seeking careers in transportation, engineering or construction. The On-the-Job Training Supportive Services grants are to supplement federal training programs and to support the training programs of state departments of transportation for highway construction contractors, apprentices and trainees.

Textron unit offers unmanned aircraft

Hunt Valley, Md.-based AAI Corp., an operating unit of Textron Systems, which is a division of Textron Inc., of Providence, has offered the newest in its successful Aerosonde fleet of small unmanned aircraft systems as a contender for the Navy and Marine Corps’ joint Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System program. The system participated in flight demonstrations June 23-24 at Yuma Proving Ground, in Arizona, and was designed with Navy and Marine Corps requirements in mind. The aircraft delivers greater than 10-hour endurance, a low acoustic signature and a small footprint for land or maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance as well as for communications relay.