As a Northrop Grumman employee and a member of the Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, BAE team, thank you for the complements on our airplane. We like it too, but we're just a little bit biased.

Last night I went to NG's victory party. Our exec's discussed the "out breifing" they got earlier in the week from our customer. That's where they tell you why you won or lost the program.

Our approach as a team was to really be a team. Each partner was to do what they did best. We had representatives from each company stationed at every other company. The program's head of Structures is a Northrop Grumman employee. This means that it's a Northrop guy in charge of making sure Lockheed's airplane can be built and won't break in service. A pretty gutsy move on Lockheed's part.

But apparently it was an approach the customer really liked. Also sounds kind of like what we try to do in FIRST which is the only reason I said anything about it.

FIRST is closer to the real world than you might think!