Purpose

The HAVE Blue project was top secret, and stealth technology "did not officially exist" to the general public. The entire project was to remain in complete secrecy, and no information about it was allowed to be shared outside of the members in the development team in hopes of keeping the technology secret from the Soviet Union and other enemies. On November 1st, 1975, Lockheed was awarded a US 1.5 million dollar contract by DARPA to develop an aircraft that used the low radar cross section design, and would be called the Experimental Survival Test bed, or XST. Skunk Works got started right away on the project using the flat panel design as the concept behind the development. With the entire project developed under complete secrecy, the general public does not know exactly when the Nighthawk was first put into active service.