An historical documentary about Kelly Johnson and Skunk Works, a division of Lockheed and the makers of many American iconic aircraft, such as the SR-71 Blackbird, U-2 Dragonlady, F-104 Starfighter.
Clarence Leonard “Kelly” Johnson (February 27, 1910 – December 21, 1990) was an American aeronautical and systems engineer. He is recognized for his contributions to a series of important aircraft designs, most notably the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird. Besides the first production aircraft to exceed Mach 3, he also produced the first fighter capable of Mach 2, the United States’ first operational jet fighter, as well as the first fighter to exceed 400 mph, and many other contributions to various aircraft.
As a member and first team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works, Johnson worked for more than four decades and is said to have been an “organizing genius”. He played a leading role in the design of over forty aircraft, including several honored with the prestigious Collier Trophy, acquiring a reputation as one of the most talented and prolific aircraft design engineers in the history of aviation.
In 2003, as part of its commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ flight, Aviation Week & Space Technology ranked Johnson eighth on its list of the top 100 “most important, most interesting, and most influential people” in the first century of aerospace. Hall Hibbard, Johnson’s Lockheed boss, referring to Johnson’s Swedish ancestry, once remarked to Ben Rich: “That damned Swede can actually see air.”
At the University of Michigan, Johnson conducted wind tunnel tests of Lockheed’s proposed Model 10 airliner. He found the aircraft did not have adequate directional stability, but his professor felt it did and told Lockheed so. Upon completing his master’s degree in 1933, Johnson joined Lockheed as a tool designer on a salary of $83 a month. Shortly after starting, Johnson convinced Hall Hibbard, the chief engineer, the Model 10 was unstable.
Hibbard sent Johnson back to Michigan to conduct more tests. Johnson eventually made multiple changes to the wind tunnel model, including adding an “H” tail, to address the problem. Lockheed accepted Johnson’s suggestions and the Model 10 went on to be a success. This brought Johnson to the attention of company management, and he was promoted to aeronautical engineer.
After assignments as flight test engineer, stress analyst, aerodynamicist, and weight engineer, he became chief research engineer in 1938. In 1952, he was appointed chief engineer of Lockheed’s Burbank, California plant, which later became the Lockheed-California Company. In 1956 he became Vice President of Research and Development there.
A design of the Lockheed A-3 (Mach 3 ramjet), sketch from Johnson’s notebook
Johnson became Vice President of Advanced Development Projects (ADP) in 1958. The first ADP offices were nearly uninhabitable; a smelly former bourbon distillery was the first ADP location, the site where his secretive team built the first P-38 Lightning prototype. 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!”
Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. It is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, beginning with the P-38 Lightning in 1939 and the P-80 Shooting Star in 1943. Skunk Works engineers subsequently developed the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor, and F-35 Lightning II, the latter being used in the air forces of several countries.
The Skunk Works name was taken from the moonshine factory in the comic strip Li’l Abner. The designation “skunk works” or “skunkworks” is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, with the task of working on advanced or secret projects.
Aircraft:
A modern Skunk Works project leverages an older one: LASRE atop the SR-71 Blackbird.
Lockheed P-38 Lightning (unofficial)
Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star
Lockheed XF-90
Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Lockheed U-2
Lockheed X-26 Frigate
Lockheed YO-3
Lockheed A-12
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
Lockheed D-21
Lockheed XST (Have Blue)
Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor
Lockheed Martin X-35 and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
Lockheed X-27
Lockheed Martin Polecat
Quiet Supersonic Transport
Lockheed Martin Cormorant
Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk
Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel
Lockheed Martin X-55
Lockheed Martin SR-72
Lockheed Martin X-59 QueSST
#KellyJohnson #skunkworks #sr71
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Click the link to watch more aircraft, heroes and their stories, missions: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBI4gRjPKfnNx3Mp4xzYTtVARDWEr6nrT
Is the audio messed up at your end or my end?
the golden age of aviation, sure would have loved to be part of that
Only possible in 🇺🇲 Thanks to the many great men and women of this country.
Worth the watch. I suggest people who liked this read Leo Janos' book "Skunk works", a great read about Ben Rich and Clarence "Kelly" Johnson.
It's the story's about who where there I respect!
Excellent documentary and much appreciated. Listening in headphones, I can hear major audio compression artifacts, so there is something wrong in your settings.
His book was a great read
does this dude have his dentures rolling around or is he rolling werthers around his mouth? and does he record in tunnel?
They succeeded with the U-2 only because they didn't have to newly design most vital, hard to design components that they simply took from other aircraft which is totally fine. National Security archives, quote: 'Only the wings and tail were unique; Lockheed manufactured the other portions of the aircraft using the F-104's jigs and dies.'
Lockheed sticks to that senior trend successfully like for example in the F-117, quote: "These subscale aircraft (Have Blue prototype) incorporated jet engines of the Northrop T-38A, fly-by-wire systems of the F-16, landing gear of the A-10, and environmental systems of the C-130."
If I remember right, the stick of an F-16 was also used since it being a part of the fly-by-wire system and most of all that remained in the production aircraft too. These were some of the smartest decisions I've ever heard of! Why make it complicated when you have a simple, smart and working solution? All of those other aircraft except the C-130 were from other companies and they still somehow were able to use their components. We every-day, none aircraft-engineer people can't even imagine what goes into designing those small, detailed, complicated parts like a stick, landing gear, electronics, weapon systems from ground up… All by themselves already a complex problem and feat of high-end, high-tech engineering.
Wow, didn't even know that some of the A-12 type aircraft were weapons capable!
P38 first 400 mph fighter and first fighter that had a 20mm cannon and 4 fifty that had a 1000yard range outshooting every American fighter
"The most remarkable thing about Kelly Johnson was the way he did it.". True words. Amazing legacy. Very well-done documentary.
The man was a genius. He was lucky enough to have a team people listen to him.
Interesting. I had no idea that Johnson helped pioneer a canard design which was rejected by the military.
Outstanding!
Apparently a human engineer too.
Good story. Germans did it first.
Some say this blunder caused the cold war. Heck… if I were a Russian… I'd fight these people whoi violate our air space. Wouldn't YOU?
Christian states pee in J's face with their policies…. and call it bravery.
Granted that Kelly Johnson was a brilliant mind ,but the Canadians were doing some pretty cutting edge stuff in the same era as the Skunk Works, when Avro Canada shut it's doors a lot of their engineers ended up in the USAF, Skunk Works and NASA
Love the channel, love the videos. Proud subscriber! Thanks for the amazing documentaries. As a kid I built the P-38 model kit several times. The SR-71 was always a fascinating aircraft to me. Kelly Johnson was indeed a genius! God bless you and yours always and thanks again for everything you do!
Sorry guys but the Arvo Arrow used a titanium shell in the mid 50’s. Once the program was shut down by the Canadian (and US) governments many of the design engineers went south to American aircraft mfg.
Kelly Johnson was A Fucking Legend!! And this documentary did him real justice!!!👍🏻
GREAT JOB!!
Is the black stealth coating on these aircraft still containing carcinogens or have they cleaned it up. Just thinking about aircraft workers.
The first few pilots to exceed 400+ in the P38 didn’t live to tell about it.
🦨 Stinky
Kelly Johnson was a true genius whose mind would not be harnessed by convention. As a former college instructor in the sciences, I find that this type of individual is extremely rare and the best method for instructing these people is to simply remove obstacles to their learning and encourage them to "free-think" on seemingly insoluble problems.
My father worked at Skunk Works during the 1960s on the SR71. Whenever we asked him what he did at work, he would reply "Do you have a need to know?" We only found out years later that he had worked on the SR71.
It sounds like he was similar to musk, but better, or maybe just less restrained
It’s a work of art that should still be in service
Maybe the person or person’s who chose Kelly Johnson in eighth place was from Japan Mmmmmmmmm that would make more sense😅
For anyone interested in Military Aviation history, Kelly Johnson IS the Engineer that more than any other advanced the state of the art.
As was said in another documentary "Kelly could see air".