Lockheed Martin Skunk Works Celebrates Seventy Years

By Heather Kelso Posted 17 September 2013

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Clarence “Kelly” Johnson founded the Skunk Works after he and his team created and delivered the XP-80 to the US Army Air Forces Air Technical Service Command in only 143 days. Johnson’s unconventional Fourteen Rules and Practices have allowed the Skunk Works to operate effectively and efficiently for seven decades.

The Skunk Works was started as a wood-and-canvas shed behind the Lockheed plant in Burbank, California. This photo is the only one released publicly that shows the Skunk Works tent. With the forebody of the P-80 Shooting Star in the foreground, a tiny portion of the tent that disguised the secret facility is visible.

The XP-80, known as Lulu Belle, was the prototype of 1,732 Shooting Stars that would follow. The P-80 was designed to counter the German jets during World War II. It proved itself to be a successful fighter, responsible for the world’s first jet-versus-jet combat victory during the Korean War.

The F-104’s distinctive and extremely thin trapezoidal wing was considered ideal for achieving high Mach numbers while retaining low-speed stability and control. Described as a “missile with a man in it,” the F-104 Starfighter was the first Mach 2 fighter. Its prototype, the XF-104, was first flown in 1954. The F-104 was flown by the US Air Force, but the Starfighter found greater utility with fourteen international operators. Italy flew F-104s during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The last operational F-104s, which were flown by the Italian Air Force, were retired in 2004.

Lockheed was given the official go-ahead on the A-12 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft on 29 August 1959. The A-12’s design was dominated by the aircraft’s propulsion system, which would give it the power needed to set the world speed and absolute records for its class. The single-seat A-12 was the forerunner of the SR-71. This photo shows the YF-12A, a two-seat interceptor variant for the US Air Force, being built in a cordoned-off section of the facility in Burbank, California.

The D-21 ramjet-powered unmanned strategic reconnaissance drone was an extension of the A-12 program. The D-21 was designed to be launched from the back of a modified A-12 known as an M-21. The drone was later modified with rocket boosters so it could be launched from under the wing of a B-52. The black areas on this full-scale mock-up were fabricated from composite materials designed to reduce the drone’s radar cross section.

The CL-400, or Project Suntan, was a successful exercise in engineering and hydrogen fuel technology. Though it did not reach the full-scale hardware phase, it did set the stage for the more conventionally fueled SR-71. When the program was terminated, Kelly Johnson gave the remaining project funds back to the government.

This image shows part of the configuration evolution of what was universally referred to but never officially named Blackbird. After twelve iterations, the SR-71 was the world’s fastest and highest flying manned aircraft. Though superficially resembling its A-12 predecessor, the SR-71 differed in many ways, including in the chine, the fuselage, and the miscellaneous subsystems.

Ben Rich, affectionately known as “the invisible man,” succeeded Johnson in 1975 as the head of Skunk Works. Rich won over the Pentagon with a redesign of the Skunk Works’ famed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft to meet more contemporary mission requirements. Rich later led development of the F-117 Nighthawk, the world’s first stealth fighter.

Have Blue was the subsonic experimental stealth testbed that led to the creation of the F-117. Its unorthodox configuration was designed to provide a maneuverable fighter aircraft with very low observable characteristics.

The F-117 became the most celebrated attack aircraft in history in 1991 after attacking targets in downtown Baghdad on the first night of Operation Desert Storm. With its faceted surfaces and special coatings to be essentially invisible to enemy radar, the Skunk Works’ precedent-setting F-117 embodies virtually all contemporary aircraft disciplines. The Nighthawk was retired in 2008 after a twenty-seven year career.

The Skunk Works, working with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, developed Sea Shadow as a counterpoint to stealthy submarines. To avoid Soviet radar, this surface vessel was designed with severe flat planes of 45-degree angles, giving it a passing resemblance to the Nighthawk. Though Sea Shadow never became operational, its technologies were eventually applied to the lower cross section of submarine periscopes and to reduce the radar cross section of a new class of destroyers for the US Navy.

The U-2S is a much different aircraft than the original U-2A. The U-2S fleet was completely rebuilt in the late 1980s to add the latest, most advanced signals intelligence, measurement and signature intelligence, and imagery intelligence sensors. This aircraft is flown in all weather conditions, day or night, and carries four times the payload of the original U-2A.

The YF-22 technology demonstrators brought a broad spectrum of air combat and technology disciplines together in one airframe for the first time. The two demonstrators came together at the Skunk Works in Palmdale, California.

The Skunk Works-led development and flight testing of the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter prototypes, precursor to the F-35, earned the Lockheed Martin team the Collier Trophy. The flight test program included the successful testing of the innovative lift fan system on the X-35B demonstrator. The success of this revolutionary short takeoff and vertical landing capability was a key factor in Lockheed Martin winning the final downselect for the Joint Strike Fighter program.

The Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft, also known as the Carbon Comet, started out as a Dornier 328 regional airliner whose fuselage and vertical tail were removed and replaced with a new all-composite design structure specifically tailored for the air mobility mission. Compared to the original metallic components, the composite structure used approximately 300 structural parts and approximately 4,000 mechanical fasteners whereas the Dornier 328 required 3,000 metallic parts and 40,000 mechanical fasteners.

Stalker—a silent, day/night-capable unmanned aerial system—has the endurance and ability to track individuals and vehicles undetected from its operational altitude. The vehicle operates autonomously during its mission but requires one person to launch. The extended endurance version (shown here) is capable of flying twelve hours in operational flight conditions.

The Hybrid Airship uses both buoyant lift (from a helium-filled envelope) and aerodynamic lift (from the airfoil shape of the envelope) to lift payloads. The P-791, a 123-foot-long, fifty-three-foot-wide, and thirty-foot-high demonstrator, was flown in 2006.

The NASA N+2 concept is being used to explore the future of commercial aviation with the goal of reducing air and noise pollution.

The Speed Agile Concept Demonstrator, or SACD, is a US Air Force Research Laboratory program to mature specific technologies needed for developing an advanced airlift solution that meets the needs of the services in the future.

The Lockheed Martin Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike, or UCLASS, concept leverages technologies and lessons learned from F-35C, RQ-170 Sentinel, and other operational systems to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission capability. The flying wing design allows for growth in capabilities to enable operations in any threat environment, from counter-terrorism to anti-access or area denial.

The Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, concept is a multidomain, net-enabled system-of-systems fighter with revolutionary capabilities.

X-56A is designed to test active flutter suppression and gust load alleviation. Its flexible wings allow the safe testing of flutter suppression technologies at low velocities and low altitudes. Technologies demonstrated by this X-56A will help reduce the weight and increase the efficiency of future aircraft.

Robert M. Gross, the chairman of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, told a design engineer one day, “Kelly, you’ve been bothering me now for seven years for an engineering experimental department. I don’t think much will come of this, but take it on.”

That was 1943. And that was all Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson needed to hear. He already had the design of the P-38 Lightning fighter to his credit—and several other prominent projects to his credit as well. Now he could pursue other projects. Shortly after that brief conversation, the XP-80 Experimental Group was formed.

That experimental department has never looked back. The department was later called Advanced Development Projects—now known as the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works—and it continues to redefine flight today. Looking back at what has come to fruition throughout Skunk Works’ seventy years, a specific path that defines the Skunk Works way of doing business can be clearly seen.

First, invest in independent research and development to explore technologies. Next, find the right partner to put promising research on contract. Then, if the technology performs well and matches the customer’s need, launch a project into development.

Unlike the mystery that shrouds Skunk Works, the business model, coupled with a now famous set of Fourteen Rules and Practices that Johnson developed for managing projects, is not a secret. But it is something special.

The images here represent just a snapshot of some of the Skunk Works’ leaders and aircraft that pushed, and continue to push, the envelope of aviation.

Heather Kelso is a program communicator for the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.

Skunk Works and the skunk logo are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and in many other countries, in connection with a wide variety of goods and services.

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