IBM has been awarded one of the biggest US government computer contracts ever, $3,600m to replace the computers used in the US civil air traffic control network: the contract is part of a $16,000m modernisation programme embarked upon some five years ago by the Federal Aviation Administration, which is unlikely to be completed by the end of the century; most air traffic computers in the US are still the same as the IBM 9020D complex of 360s at West Drayton that has given UK controllers such headaches; IBM’s Federal Systems Division beat General Motors Corp’s Hughes Aircraft Co to the monster contract.