Raytheon's missiles are selling well

Lockheed Martin, a defence contractor that focuses on aviation, reported a jump in earnings, including a 57% surge in revenues at its aeronautics division.

And Raytheon, which focuses on missile technology, boasted a jump in sales, driven by a 12% leap in government defence contracts.

Both firms were reporting results for the first three months of the year, before the Iraqi war - which began in the third week of March - could have any effect on performance.

Lucky Lockheed

Of the two companies, Lockheed has been the stronger for years, and continued to be so in its first-quarter results.

Lockheed, which builds the F-16 fighter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, reported first-quarter profits of $250m (�160m), up 12% year-on-year.

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Its strongest units was aeronautic technology, which has experienced a surge in business from the development of the Joint Strike Fighter, arguably the biggest military aviation project currently in production.

Crucially for a firm with such dependence on multi-billion-dollar contracts, Lockheed's order book is bulging at record levels.

The firm notched up about $11.3bn in orders during the quarter, leaving it with work worth $74.6bn on its books.

Missiles down

The situation is less straightforwardly positive at Raytheon, a company which has been hit by a series of troubles, including a probe by the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Its net profit of $95m in the first quarter was a substantial improvement on performance a year ago, but was still slightly down on the previous quarter.

Raytheon is having to adjust its results to take account of various non-core costs, most notably write-downs of various subsidiaries, and expenses relating to the company pension scheme.

Nonetheless, Raytheon continues to perform strongly as a US defence contractor.

Raytheon, best-known for making Tomahawk and Patriot missiles, now has outstanding orders worth $26.7bn.