Lockheed Martin wins the Joint Strike Fighter competition

The Pentagon announced that the team led by Lockheed Martin, with Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, had beaten Boeing's and would proceed into the Joint Strike Fighter system development and demonstration phase. The initial contract, worth some 18.9 billion dollars, covered the first twenty-two development aircraft. The full programme was estimated at the time at more than 3,000 aircraft for three U.S. services and several foreign partners.