At that point in the competition (two designs chosen of seven paper
designs) unless the USAF did a lot of inhouse simulation/studies/ etc.
about the only thing they have to go on is the data the manufacturers
submit with their proposals.

So then, didn't the USAF have similar skills to GD, who are the ones that
clued lockheed?


" It might even be that the air force *did* know Lockheed's entry was
questionable aerodynamically but stealth was important enough to
accept it."




Looking at the two proposals they chose (Lockheed and
Northrop) it's obvious that experience in stealth was a very high
priority. Certainly neither company had any recent experience turning
out a lot of high end fighters.

Has Lockheed ever built a mass produced fighter before?

The last was the F-104 and ISTR that most of those were produced
overseas.







With that in mind the two most
logical choices would have been Lockheed and Northrop- exactly who
they chose. An interesting sidenote is that GD was third and they
also have been associated with stealth from way back (the
A-12/Kingfisher competition).

It would seem to me that GD would have been the low risk choice.


On the ATF? Possibly. However typically a single-tailed delta isn't
exactly stellar in air to air after the first turn. Going by the way
they ranked them though it seems like stealth was far and away the
primary consideration.





Boeing was fourth with damn near no
stealth experience (in the white world anyway) and the historical king
of fighter producers McD was 5th.

McDonnell already had two fighter contracts and GD had one. The only logic
that would apply is one where the Pentagon wanted to create an additional
provider.

Grumman would have been the logical choice if that's all they wanted
to do. They already had experience building figthers and were
current. Yeah it had the Tomcat but even back then production was
starting to taper off.





To go from supplying the USAF with
their premier fighter for the last forty or so years (F-4/F-15) to
placing FIFTH in the competition to build a new fighter suggests that
though the USAF wanted it all, aerodynamic performance took a distant
second place behind stealth.

Son, let me tell it like it is, when you take it down the road from number
one you get less, not more.

???? Less *what*? Performance? It was number one on the F-15 and
nobody who's flown the F-22 will give the nod to the F-15 when it
comes to flight performance vs. the F-22. Obviously it could be said
"if they'd made flight performance the #1 priority on the F-22 it
would fly better than it currently does". The thing is, what do you
get these days by making it number one? When it comes to flying what
is more important than stealth that the F-22 can't do?






It might even be that the air force
*did* know Lockheed's entry was questionable aerodynamically but
stealth was important enough to accept it.

Politics.

Joe politician can kick and scream all he wants, it's not going to
magically bestow stealth expertise on a company. Stealth is what got
Lockheed to contract IMO. Bringing GD onboard is what made the
aircraft a fighter. Boeing. . .well they did something.