MOJAVE, Calif.— When Northrop Grumman lost its initial bid for the U.S. Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft, the company went back to the drawing board. Now, it wants to fly a new prototype, called Project Talon, in the next nine months.

Project Talon—previously referred to as Project Lotus internally—builds on the company’s initial offering for the first increment of the U.S. Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft program. But while CCA’s first increment is designed for air-to-air missions , Northrop developed Talon to handle a variety of missions, Tom Jones, corporate vice president and president for Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems, told reporters Wednesday.

“What we learned is we took a high side compliant engineering organization and taught them a different way o

See Full Page