![]() ![]() Doing so was not possible given the security clearances involved and the short time between the agreement signing and the contract award. Though the three companies had a teaming agreement, they had not exchanged information. Never before had they shared everything they knew about a program with an audience considered to be the competition only a week before. The all-day show-and-tell was unprecedented for everyone in attendance. Boeing presented after lunch and was followed by General Dynamics late in the afternoon. ![]() About 100 engineers and managers crowded into a large high-security conference room in Building 360, where representatives from each of the three companies were allotted two hours to present their proposed ATF concept. The next Monday morning, representatives from Lockheed, Boeing, and General Dynamics met for the first time as a team at Lockheed facilities in Burbank, California. The dem/val award was announced on a Friday afternoon. Though concealed in quiet secrecy, work during the intervening four years was anything but quiet for those involved, as the ATF competition intensified. Very little information about the project appeared in public until the prototypes were unveiled almost four years later in August 1990. The dem/val phase would determine which team would enter the next phase of the program and, ultimately, which team would build production versions of the ATF.Īfter the dem/val award announcement, the Advanced Tactical Fighter program returned to its stealthy status. Each team would also build ground-based avionics prototypes and a flying laboratory to demonstrate the avionics. The newly formed teams now led by the two winning companies would build two flying prototypes each one with Pratt & Whitney engines and the other with General Electric engines. Secretary Aldridge’s Halloween announcement meant that Lockheed and Northrop had each won $691 million contracts to proceed to the demonstration/ validation phase of the Advanced Tactical Fighter program.
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