by Pratt & Whitney, were viewed as foregone conclusions; the Beit Shemesh engine plant already had an established relationship with the company and planned to co-produce the engine, thus enabling some of the manufacturing to be carried out domestically in Israel. Some elements of the engine had to be manufactured in the US due to some of the design aspects having been classified as secret. The development of the Lavi was viewed by some figures in Israeli military and government circles, most notably Moshe Arens and Shimon Peres, as being an important program to modernise Israeli industry overall and to increase its technical ability, helping the nation progress towards becoming a developed nation. Testing The development program was planned to involve a total of five prototypes of the Lavi being completed, three of which were to have used a two-seat cockpit configuration. On 31 December 1986, the first prototype took off on its maiden flight. The test pilot, Menachem Shmul, head of IAI's Air Operations section, took off at 13:21 and stayed in the air for 26 minutes, during which he checked the engine and controls. The handling was described as "excellent", with a high degree of stability in crosswind landings. About three months later, a second Lavi prototype took to the air; it featured improvements and additional features over the first, with a belly-mounted fuel tank, a special midair refuelling probe and several new avionic systems. Both B-01 and B-02 were tandem two-seaters, with the rear cockpit occupied by test equipment. By August 1987, the month in which the Lavi was canceled, a total of 82 sorties had reportedly been flown between the two completed prototypes, during which a significant proportion of the flight envelope had been explored. Controversy and cancellation While the Lavi had attracted the steadfast support of IAF veteran and Likud minister Moshe Arens, there was considerable dissent over the development. While the U.S. was a key partner in the aircraft's development, there was vocal political opposition to financing the Lavi, which may have been a competitive aircraft in the export market against American aircraft such as the F-16C/D and the F/A-18C/D. The Lavi would have also required a great deal of other competing military requirements and sought investments to be abandoned, thus there were elements of the armed forces that did not support the project and those officers who felt that the F-16 possessed similar