The contrasting versions about Skunk Works’ beginnings
On paper, the specifications for the spy plane that could capture incredibly clear pictures from 70,000 feet seemed like pure fantasy. A Mach-3 aircraft that could outrun missiles by actually flying nonstop for hours on end. An attack plane that could hide from the radar surveillance of its adversaries.
Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, the chief engineer of Lockheed, simply handled all inquiries and informed his hand-picked team at Skunk Works of what needed to be done.
They would deliver after that, as was said in a brilliant article that was posted on Lockheed Martin.com. Their area of expertise has always been and will continue to be impossible tasks.
Wikipedia states that there are conflicting accounts of Skunk Works’ conception.
Ben Rich and “Kelly” Johnson give June 1943 in Burbank, California as the starting point for their autobiographies; they practically follow the same timeline. The official Lockheed Skunk Works narrative is theirs.
The Army Air Force’s Air Tactical Service Command (ATSC) met with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to discuss its requirement for a jet fighter. A rapidly escalating German jet threat provided Lockheed with the chance to build an airframe around the British Goblin, the most powerful jet engine available to the allied forces. Because of its prior involvement in jet development and its contracts with the Air Force, Lockheed was selected to create the jet.
Young engineer Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson and other associate engineers personally brought the first XP-80 proposal to the ATSC one month after the ATSC and Lockheed meeting. Lockheed was given the go-ahead to begin development two days later, and Kelly Johnson’s Skunk Works was established. Lockheed didn’t receive the official contract for the XP-80 until October 16, 1943, or about four months after work had already started on it.
This would turn out to be a Skunk Works standard procedure. Frequently, a customer would approach the Skunk Works with a request, and after exchanging a handshake with no contracts or formal submission procedure, the project would start. The XP-80 was conceived and constructed by Kelly Johnson and his Skunk Works team in just 143 days, seven fewer than was necessary.
In 1958, Kelly Johnson was appointed vice president of Lockheed Advanced Development Projects (ADP), the predecessor to today’s Advanced Development Programs at Lockheed Martin. At the time, their initial offices were essentially uninhabitable. They were close to a plastics factory, which produced an extremely strong stink. Irv Culver, one of the engineers, started to answer the Intra-Lockheed phone by saying, “Skonk Works!” because the stink was so awful.
This name is derived from the well-known Al Capp comic strip “L’il Abner.” Within this strip, Big Barnsmell’s Skonk Works — spelled with an “o” — was where Kickapoo Joy Juice was brewed. The name struck as being quite fitting. As soon as the moniker started to circulate, Lockheed decided to modify it to “Skunk Works” in order to avoid any potential copyright-related legal issues.
This nickname for R and D offices in general quickly gained popularity and spread throughout the aerospace community. The Skunk Works, however, would always be connected to the Lockheed facility. The F-104 Starfighter, the notorious spyplanes U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird, the first stealth aircraft, the F-117, and even the made-up Darkstar for Top Gun: Maverick were all developed at this location.
For 40 years, Kelly Johnson has not been the only “head skunk” at the Skunk Works. He was actually asked by the CIA in 1955 to start building the covert airport at Groom Lake, Nevada. The final flight testing of the famous Lockheed U-2 took place there, which eventually came to be known as Area 51.
If it flies high and fast enough, they won’t be able to see it, as Kelly was famous for saying.
Photo by Jarek Tuszyński and Jonathan Cutrer from San Angelo, Texas, United States via Wikipedia