with West Germany, wanting to break a perceived German ideological preference for American aircraft. In 1968, a joint specification was produced out of these talks. One substantial change to the requirements was that the sought trainer was now specified to be subsonic, supersonic trainer aircraft having proven to be superfluous to practical requirements. In July 1969, a joint development and production agreement was signed between West Germany and France; under the terms of this agreement, the two nations committed to purchasing 200 aircraft, these being domestically assembled in each of their own countries. At one point, both the German government and the German Air Force had been keen to relocate pilot training activities from the United States to France as part of the project. In 1971, however, this was abandoned over fears of a hostile US reaction and West Germany's offset obligations to the United States making such a move unpalatable. While the joint Franco-German training proposal was abandoned, the German government felt obligated to proceed with the aircraft program; at the time, Germany did not require a new trainer aircraft, but it did have a need for a replacement for its fleet of Fiat G.91 attack aircraft. Accordingly, Germany proposed that the aircraft be built in two distinct versions, as an inexpensive trainer for the French requirement, and as a close air support platform for the German requirement; this position was accepted by France. An initial point of contention whether to use a French or American powerplant for the aircraft was also settled, with France agreeing to solely finance the development of the French-built Larzac engine while Germany agreed to adopt the same powerplant. A total of three groups of manufacturers produced proposals in response to the requirement; these were Dassault, Breguet and Dornier submitted the "TA501", which had been developed through a merger of the Breguet 126 and Dornier P.375 concepts, VFW-Fokker submitted their "VFT-291" aircraft, while SNIAS/MBB submitted the "E.650 Eurotrainer". Each of these proposals were to be powered by twin SNECMA Turbomeca Larzac turbofan engines. The German Air Force had insisted that the trainer have two engines after having suffered from severe aircraft attrition rates due to the high accident rate of the single-engine Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. Into production On 23 July 1970, the Breguet-Dassault-Dornier TA501 was declared the winner of the competition. In February 1971, the project definition phase was formally completed and the integrated