Editing Skunk Works (section)

==History==
[[File:F117-palmdale-040625-01.jpg|thumb|right|Entrance plaza at the Skunk Works in [[Palmdale, California]]]]

There are conflicting observations about the birth of Skunk Works.

Engineer [[Ben Rich (engineer)|Ben Rich]] sets the origin as June 1943 in [[Burbank, California]].<ref name="bennis_biederman">{{Cite book |last1=Bennis |first1=Warren |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p1m-qnHJdY4C |title=Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration |last2=Biederman |first2=Patricia Ward |publisher=Perseus Books |year=1997 |page=117|isbn=9780201339895 }}</ref> [[Kelly Johnson (engineer)|Kelly Johnson]] has made contradictory statements, some agreeing with Rich, and others putting the origin earlier, in 1939.<ref name=Look1964/> The official [[Lockheed Corporation|Lockheed]] Skunk Works story states:

{{quote|text=The Air Tactical Service Command (ATSC) of the Army Air Force met with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to express its need for a jet fighter. A rapidly growing German jet threat gave Lockheed an opportunity to develop an airframe around the most powerful jet engine that the allied forces had access to, the British [[de Havilland Goblin|Goblin]]. Lockheed was chosen to develop the jet because of its past interest in jet development and its previous contracts with the Air Force. One month after the ATSC and Lockheed meeting, the young engineer Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson and other associate engineers hand delivered the initial [[Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star|XP-80]] proposal to the ATSC. Two days later the go-ahead was given to Lockheed to start development and the Skunk Works was born, with Kelly Johnson at the helm.

The formal contract for the XP-80 did not arrive at Lockheed until October 16, 1943; some four months after work had already begun. This would prove to be a common practice within the Skunk Works. Many times a customer would come to the Skunk Works with a request and on a handshake the project would begin, with no contracts in place, no official submittal process. Kelly Johnson and his Skunk Works team designed and built the XP-80 in only 143 days, seven fewer than was required.<ref name="origin" />}}

Warren M. Bodie, journalist, historian, and Skunk Works engineer from 1977 to 1984, wrote that engineering independence, elitism and secrecy of the Skunk Works variety were demonstrated earlier when Lockheed was asked by Lieutenant [[Benjamin S. Kelsey]] (later air force brigadier general) to build for the [[United States Army Air Corps]] a high speed, high altitude [[Fighter aircraft|fighter]] to compete with German aircraft. In July 1938, while the rest of Lockheed was busy tooling up to build [[Lockheed Hudson|Hudson]] reconnaissance bombers to fill a British contract, a small group of engineers was assigned to fabricate the first prototype of what would become the [[P-38 Lightning]]. Kelly Johnson set them apart from the rest of the factory in a walled-off section of one building, off limits to all but those involved directly.<ref name="Bodie23">Bodie, 2001, p. 23.</ref> Secretly, a number of advanced features were being incorporated into the new fighter including a significant structural revolution in which the aluminum skin of the aircraft was [[Joggle bending|joggled]], fitted and flush-riveted, a design innovation not called for in the army's specification but one that would yield less aerodynamic drag and give greater strength with lower mass. 

As a result, the XP-38 was the first 400-mph fighter in the world. The Lightning team was temporarily moved to the 3G Distillery, a smelly former bourbon works where the first YP-38 (constructor's number 2202) was built.<ref name="Bodie51">Bodie, 2001, p. 51.</ref> Moving from the distillery to a larger building, the stench from a nearby plastic factory was so vile that [[Irv Culver]], one of the engineers, began answering the intra-Lockheed "house" phone "Skonk Works, inside man Culver speaking!"<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=The Skunk Works® Legacy |url=https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/who-we-are/business-areas/aeronautics/skunkworks/skunk-works-origin-story.html |access-date=2024-01-14 |website=Lockheed Martin |language=en}}</ref> 

In [[Al Capp|Al Capp's]] comic strip [[Li'l Abner]], Big Barnsmell's Skonk Works — spelled with an "o" — was where [[Kickapoo Joy Juice]] was brewed from skunks, old shoes, kerosene, anvils, and other strange ingredients. When the name leaked out, Lockheed ordered it changed to "Skunk Works" to avoid potential legal trouble over use of a copyrighted term. The term rapidly circulated throughout the aerospace community, and became a common nickname for research and development offices. The once informal nickname is now a registered trademark of Lockheed Martin.<ref name=":0" /> 

In November 1941, Kelsey gave the unofficial nod to Johnson and the P-38 team to engineer a [[drop tank]] system to extend range for the fighter, and they completed the initial research and development without a contract. When the Army Air Forces officially asked for a range extension solution it was ready.<ref name="Bodie72">Bodie, 2001, p. 72.</ref> The range modifications were performed in Lockheed's Building 304, starting with 100 P-38F models on April 15, 1942.<ref name="Bodie94">Bodie, 2001, p. 94.</ref> Some of the group of independent-minded engineers were later involved with the XP-80 project, the prototype of the [[P-80 Shooting Star]]. 

[[Mary G. Ross]], the first [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] female engineer, began working at Lockheed in 1942 on the mathematics of compressibility in [[high-speed flight]]<ref name=Ross/>—a problem first seriously encountered in the P-38.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://www.nasa.gov/history/SP-4219/Chapter3.html |chapter=Research in Supersonic Flight and the Breaking of the Sound Barrier  |last=Anderson |first=John D., Jr |page=72 |title=Engineering Science to Big Science |editor=Pamela E. Mack |publisher=NASA |date=1998  |isbn=978-0160496400}}</ref> In 1952, she was invited to join the Skunk Works team.<ref name=Ross>{{Cite news |last=Briggs |first=Kara |date=December 24, 2008 |title=Cherokee rocket scientist leaves heavenly gift |work=[[Cherokee Phoenix]] |agency=NMAI Newservice |url=http://www.cherokeephoenix.org/Article/Index/2470}}</ref>

===1950s to 1990s===
[[File:SR71 factoryfloor SkunkWorks.jpg|thumb|alt=SR-71 at Lockheed Skunk Works|Assembly line of the SR-71 Blackbird at Skunk Works]]

In 1955, the Skunk Works received a contract from the [[CIA]] to build a spyplane known as the [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]] with the intention of flying over the Soviet Union and photographing sites of strategic interest. The U-2 was tested at [[Area 51|Groom Lake]] in the [[Nevada]] desert, and the Flight Test Engineer in charge was [[Joseph F Ware Jr|Joseph F. Ware, Jr]]. The first overflight took place on July 4 [[1956 in aviation|1956]]. The U-2 ceased overflights when [[Francis Gary Powers]] [[U-2 Crisis of 1960|was shot down]] during a mission on May 1, 1960, while over Russia.

The Skunk Works had predicted that the U-2 would have a limited operational life over the Soviet Union. The CIA agreed. In late 1959, Skunk Works received a contract to build five [[A-12 Oxcart|A-12]] aircraft at a cost of $96 million. Building a [[Mach number|Mach]] 3.0+ aircraft out of [[titanium]] posed enormous difficulties, and the first flight did not occur until 1962. (Titanium supply was largely dominated by the Soviet Union, so the CIA used several [[shell corporations]] to acquire source material.) Several years later, the [[United States Air Force|U.S. Air Force]] became interested in the design, and it ordered the [[SR-71 Blackbird]], a two-seater version of the A-12. This aircraft first flew in 1966 and remained in service until 1998.

The [[Lockheed D-21|D-21]] [[Unmanned aerial vehicle|drone]], similar in design to the Blackbird, was built to overfly the [[Lop Nur]] nuclear test facility in [[People’s Republic of China|China]]. This drone was launched from the back of a specially modified A-12, known as M-21, of which there were two built. After a fatal mid-air collision on the fourth launch, the drones were re-built as D-21Bs, and launched with a rocket booster from [[B-52]]s. Four operational missions were conducted over China, but the camera packages were never successfully recovered. Kelly Johnson headed the Skunk Works until 1975. He was succeeded by Ben Rich.

In 1976, the Skunk Works began production on a pair of stealth technology demonstrators for the [[U.S. Air Force]] named ''[[Have Blue]]'' in Building 82 at Burbank. These scaled-down demonstrators, built in only 18 months, were a revolutionary step forward in aviation technology because of their extremely small [[radar cross-section]]. After a series of successful test flights beginning in 1977, the Air force awarded Skunk Works the contract to build the [[F-117]] stealth fighter on November 1, 1978.

During the entirety of the [[Cold War]], the Skunk Works was located in Burbank, California, on the eastern side of [[Bob Hope Airport|Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport]] ({{coord|34.200768|-118.351826|display=inline}}). After 1989, Lockheed reorganized its operations and relocated the Skunk Works to Site 10 at [[Plant 42|U.S. Air Force Plant 42]] in [[Palmdale, California]], where it remains in operation today. Most of the old Skunk Works buildings in Burbank were demolished in the late 1990s to make room for parking lots. One main building still remains at 2777 Ontario Street in Burbank (near San Fernando Road), now used as an office building for digital film post-production and sound mixing. During the late 1990s when designing Pixar's building, [[Edwin Catmull]] and [[Steve Jobs]] visited a Skunkworks Building which influenced Jobs' design.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Catmull |first=Edwin |url=https://archive.org/details/creativityincove0000catm |title=Afterword: The Steve We Knew |publisher=Creativity Inc |year=2014 |isbn=9780812993011}}</ref> In 2009, the Skunk Works was inducted into the [[International Air & Space Hall of Fame]] at the [[San Diego Air & Space Museum]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=These We Honor: The International Aerospace Hall of Fame |publisher=Donning Co. Publishers |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-57864-397-4 |editor-last=Sprekelmeyer |editor-first=Linda}}.</ref>