you are here > home > its history
Design work on the ATF3 began at AiResearch Manufacturing Company's Torrance, Calif. facility (Site A) in early 1966. Anthony A. DuPont, director of product planning for Garrett at the time, was chiefly responsible for bringing the ATF3 into being...
John Evans has created a full chronology of the ATF3's history and a story on the birth of the engine and the Site B test facility. He has a unique and all-encompassing perspective on the engine's history, as he worked on the engine program (as both technician and engineer) in both Torrance and in Phoenix from 1968 through 1998. For those of you who don't know him, John is blessed with a near-photographic memory. His mind is a vast storehouse of information, both weighty and trivial (mostly trivial). I hope to get many more of John's recollections and rememberances here in this website as it grows.
I've got a few articles from back issues of Aviation Week describing the history of the engine. Thanks to Jerry Steele for submitting these. Jerry retired from his position as manager of the Torrance Site B test facility in 199X after working XX years on the ATF3 program.
updated 3/21/2002