Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), the company's tactical research and development arm. It is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, highly classified development programs, and exotic aircraft platforms. Although locations for this group are typically classified, publicly-known locations have been reported on United States Air Force manufacturing bases Plant 42 (Palmdale), Plant 4 (Fort Worth), and Plant 6 (Marietta). Skunk Works' history dates back to the original Lockheed Corporation and started with the P-38 Lightning in 1939 and the P-80 Shooting Star in 1943. During this time, the group was called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. 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 "Skonk Oil" factory in the comic strip Li'l Abner. The modern term "skunkworks" is widely used in American 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.
History There are conflicting observations about the birth of Skunk Works. Engineer Ben Rich sets the origin as June 1943 in Burbank, California. Kelly Johnson has made contradictory statements, some agreeing with Rich, and others putting the origin earlier, in 1939. The official Lockheed Skunk Works story states:
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 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 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. 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 to compete with German aircraft. In July 1938, while the rest of Lockheed was busy tooling up to build 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. 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 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 former bourbon works where the first YP-38 (constructor's number 2202) was built. 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!" In Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner, Big Barnsmell's Skonk Works—spelled with an "o"—was where Skonk Oil 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. 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. The range modifications were performed in Lockheed's Building 304, starting with 100 P-38F models on April 15, 1942. 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 American female engineer, began working at Lockheed in 1942 on the mathematics of compressibility in high-speed flight—a problem first seriously encountered in the P-38. In 1952, she was invited to join the Skunk Works team.
1950s to 1990s
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