The Genius Behind Skunk Works: Kelly Johnson's Top Secret Airplane Designs That Will Blow Your Mind

[Music] [Applause] [Music] in overflying russia for four years that they were making important advances in radar and missiles and so in 1958 two years before gary powers was shot down but we decided we'd try to make a follow-on airplane which became finally the sr-71 to fly higher than four times as fast so that's the connection between the grandfather type and the sr-71 everyone called him kelly and as he reminisced that day about the genesis of his mach 3 masterpiece he could have just as easily reflected back on a time when aircraft designers were striving for 200 miles per hour a time when he landed his first job with the fledgling lockheed aircraft company in 1932 a small group led by robert e gross had purchased lockheed out of bankruptcy for forty thousand dollars and stake the company's future on the development of an all-metal twin engine transport models of the design were sent to the university of michigan where a young graduate student named clarence l johnson conducted wind tunnel tests although his faculty advisors gave the design a passing grade he wasn't much impressed and after he had been hired on as a tool designer at lockheed in august of 1933 he let chief design engineer hal hibbard know about it among other things it would be directly unstable especially with one engine out a rather presumptuous a certainly unconventional way for a 23 year old to start his career the new company but it was only a hint of what would follow the son of swedish immigrants he'd been nicknamed kelly by classmates because of his quick temper stubborn tenacity and unwillingness to back down from a fight even against overwhelming odds instead of reminding the outspoken young man of his place hibbard suggested he go back to the wind tunnel and see if he could improve the design after 72 test runs he came up with the solution an unconventional twin-tail arrangement soon to become a lucky trademark and the model 10 electra became the foundation for lockheed's future growth as various models of the airplane helped revolutionize commercial air transport in the 1930s with his work on the design kelly johnson became the sixth member of an engineering department in an industry which then couldn't afford specialists working often simultaneously as an aerodynamicist stress analyst weight wind tunnel and flight test engineer he also put in long hours out in the shop getting hands-on production experience and learning firsthand the importance of designing produce ability into an airplane it was a real world education on all phases of design and development that within a decade couldn't be duplicated and the lessons learned became guideposts for the rest of his career he flew for example his flight test engineer on all models of the electorate and worked for some of the most notable figures in aviation such as amelia earhart out of this experience came his lifelong conviction that the designer had to be able to test his own airplane as he later commented and i decided at an early date that unless i had health care out of me once a year i wouldn't have the proper balance to really design new everything of anything kelly johnson would log more than 2300 hours as a flight test engineer the versatile electra spawned two major developments one was the xc35 a modified model 10 which in 1937 first demonstrated the practical feasibility of transforming the entire fuselage into a pressurized cabin to permit comfortable high altitude flight johnson was lockheed's flight test engineer on this project gaining first-hand experience problems of pressurization and more important with tremendous possibilities pioneered by this aircraft possibilities to which he and hull hibbard began to give serious consideration meanwhile the model 14 electra incorporated a number of johnson innovations such as the first practical application of fowler flaps which both increased the wing's lifting surface and served from its slower shorter distance landings an achievement which won him the 1937 lord sperry award in 1938 the high speed and innovative features of the model 14 attracted british interest in its potential as an anti-submarine patrol plane but the requirements necessitated a major redesign johnson worked around the clock for three days to transform the model 14 into the hudson bomber the british ordered an initial batch of 250 aircraft at that time the largest production order ever received by an american company but there would be many more 2 000 to the raf alone out of a total production run of nearly 3 000 airplanes the hudson put lockheed into the big time but even as production was gearing up kelly johnson and his colleagues were well into other much more ambitious designs the success of the pressurized xc35 and the recognition that the next generation of air transports would be much larger higher speed trans-oceanic aircraft inspired johnson hibbert and a small design team to lay out the now classic lines of the model 49 constellation in 1939 using his soon to be legendary powers of persuasion he convinced lockheed to build its own wind tunnel a decision that paid for itself many times over during the development of this design as all aerodynamic problems were overcome early on and not one external change had to be made to the actual aircraft hibbard was so impressed by johnson's wizardry that he swore he could see air commercial development of the legendary connie would be delayed by the war and it first flew as the army air force's c-69 this however provided time to refine the airplane so that at war's end lockheed was postured to capture a lion's share of the commercial market and various models of the elegant connie would continue to grace the world's airways into the late 1950s at the time he laid down the basic design of the constellation johnson was already well into another path-breaking project in early 1937 responding to an air corps requirement for a high-altitude interceptor capable of 360 miles per hour johnson and hibbard hastily conceived some possible configurations depicted here in one of kelly's rough sketches has johnson observed many times in design you're forced to develop unusual solutions to unusual problems their decision to go with an unconventional twin boom configuration was dictated by another axiom design features are the creatures of necessity the twin booms evolved as a logical development of engine the cells which had to be extended to house the liquid cooled engines turbo superchargers radiators and main landing gear it seemed logical then to simply extend the nacelles into booms which could carry the empanadas their novel approach produced a winning design when the xp-38 was finally rolled out in january of 1939 its sleek lines bespoke speed and when lieutenant ben kelsey took it up for its maiden flight it delivered an impressive 403 miles per hour far exceeding the requirements thus begin the sagging of the p-38 lightning the first american aircraft able to fly at such speeds can offer dazzling performance and a host of new problems for as it peeled over into dives at high altitudes it could hit speeds approaching 500 miles per hour in this region the aircraft began to violently shake and nose over into increasingly steeper angles and controlled forces became so heavy pilots couldn't pull out tragically some never recovered kelly johnson wasn't taken by surprise although many insisted it was tail flutter he immediately recognized it as the then little understood phenomenon of compressibility at 500 miles per hour localized airflow over certain parts of the aircraft was reaching supersonic velocity and this produced shock waves and serious problems the p-38 was the first aircraft to encounter this and so little was actually known about it that johnson launched exhaustive wind tunnel studies and an accelerated dive test program headed by chief test pilot milo burcham after more than two years he finally identified the problem as shock stall in the wing which reduced lift and increased drag thereby inducing the nose down tuck typically he was quick to devise a cleverly simple remedy a die flap mounted to the main wing spar that when deployed generated a positive pressure field immediately restoring lip and a nose-up pitching moment thrown on every battlefield the p-38 excelled in combat christening the fourth-tailed devil by germans the versatile fighter combining speed and load carrying capability proved adaptable to a wide array of combat roles and its long legs made it ideal for the vast reaches of the pacific where it destroyed more enemy aircraft than any other allied fighter impressive though it was kelly johnson was never satisfied with it he'd long foreseen the inherent limitations of prop driven aircraft and they're unaware of developments in germany and england where turbojets had already been successfully developed he decided that props had to go thus he and hibbard became the first in this country to seriously pursue the possibilities of turbojet propulsion when in 1939 they asked nathan price to design an experimental turbojet power plant design of the l-1000 got underway in 1940 and by 1942 price had come up with a truly advanced design a high compression ratio twin spool axial flow power plant promising an extraordinary 5100 pounds of thrust meanwhile johnson and a young engineer named willis hawkins led a design team that came up with the l-133 the truly radical twin-engine stainless steel aircraft featuring thin wings and canard surfaces and projected to achieve 625 miles per hour at 50 000 feet but surprisingly when johnson submitted a proposal for development of the engine and airframe in march 1942 the army air forces showed little interest although launched long after his effort top-secret development of an american turbojet fighter powered by a british whittle engine was by then already underway the bell xp-59a first flew at murak army air force base on california's high desert in october of 1942 but it proved to be underpowered overweight and scarcely optimized for jet flight and early on the army air forces decided that it wouldn't meet front line fighter requirements nobel didn't yet know this and the testing continued [Music] on june 10 1943 a bell engineer at murak reported back that johnson had been permitted to examine the still top secret xp 59a and he wondered what he was up to unbeknownst to bell the army air force had already asked lockheed to submit a proposal for a simpler single engine jet fighter thrown around a 3 000 pound thrust alfred h-1 engine which would be capable of frontline service johnson took in a lot that day but had already been wrestling with jet propulsion for nearly three years and he already had a suitable design well in hand when he made his proposal at right field on june 18th he made the astounding promise that he'd deliver an aircraft within just 180 days getting immediate approval he was cautioned that the utmost secrecy was required blocky was already swamped in terms of manpower tooling and facilities with wartime contracts but this was a blessing in disguise an opportunity to implement an idea he'd been pestering robert gross about for years let him round up a small group of talented people designers engineers and shopmen put them under one roof where they could all work closely together and give him complete authority over everything from procurement to flight test with no other options rose said go ahead stealing people from around the plant just 28 engineers including himself and 105 shopmen he also built a small facility out of discarded shipping crates using a circus tent for a roof on june 19th he laid down the principles under which the project would operate in one and a half pages now preserved on old photostats they form the basis for how we try to operate for the next 30 years he'd be responsible for all decisions paperwork and red tape would be cut to the minimum each engineer would be designer shop contact parts chaser and mechanic and each would remain within a stone's throw of the shop at all times there'd be but one object to get a good airplane built on time the daily log indicates that two days later he laid out the horizontal structure of the organization no pyramidal multi-tiered layers of management each project engineer and the shop foreman would report directly to him and in fact he'd be looking over everyone's shoulder he wanted information direct from the men doing the work and if they had questions they'd get decisions immediately on the spot he promised the airplane in 180 days as would become his custom he gave his men 150 their clock started ticking on june 23rd forcefully reminded that simplicity is a keynote of good design the designers jumped into their work but this was a new kind of operation and instead of moving from stage to stage the schedule demanded an extraordinary degree of concurrency with finished detailed design still many weeks away the mock-up was started on june 30th and completed by july 17th by then milling and fabrication of parts and the construction of jigs to assemble a prototype was already well underway and by july 31st the bulkheads were going into the jigs and section by section the airframe started coming together throughout this period however the design process continued as concurrent wind tunnel tests revealed problems the wing and the engine air inlets were the biggest headaches he'd gambled on the wing a laminar flow air coil that had never before been tested on an airplane and of course nobody had had any experience with endless johnson was willing to accept mistakes on such an accelerated and risky venture as long as they were reported promptly typically he never asked why but what are you going to do to fix it the project was so secret that his group didn't even have a name the whole setup reminded one of his design engineers irv culver of the mysterious place where hairless joe one of alcap's cartoon characters little abner ground up skunks old shoes and other unsavory ingredients to brew a potent concoction called kickapoo joy juice so inspired he answered the phone one day skunk works inside man carver though johnson wasn't amused his organization suddenly had a name that stuck [Music] remarkably the completed aircraft arrived at murak on november 14th just 143 days after startup when the engine was run up three days later there was a terrific roar as the inlet ducts collapsed sending debris into the engine and cracking the impeller it took six weeks to get a new engine but on january 3rd 1944 milo burcham successfully completed the taxi tests [Music] and five days later the chill of the morning on january 8th johnson white coveralls overcoat and stocking cap worked intently with his crew preparing for the first flight as over a hundred skunk works employees stood atop a hill looking on he wanted everyone who'd worked on the airplane they now call lulu bell to be on hand he told bircham just flyer milo find out if she's a lady or a witch at 9 15 he took off [Music] but only five minutes later i was taxiing back to report that the landing gear hadn't retracted and that the boosted ailerons felt too sensitive while the gear problem was being fixed johnson assured him that the control sensitivity was normal and at 10 o'clock he took off again and this time put on a dazzling 20-minute display attaining a top speed of 490 miles per hour and reporting a roll rate of 360 degrees per second back on the ground he was able to report that louisville was indeed a lady the xp-80 ultimately became the first american aircraft to exceed 500 miles per hour but this was only the beginning for months johnson had been working on a larger more advanced version with a 4 000 pound thrust general electric i-40 engine promising much greater speed he promised the xp-80a just 150 days and delivered it in 132. but as tony levere taxied in after the first flight on june 10th he'd had a few surprises center of gravity miscalculations and caused purpose the faulty pressurization valve that channeled 325 degree engine bleed air into the cockpit and malfunctioning flaps put the airplane into violent rolls only his superb flying skills allowed him to bring it back and johnson was so grateful he doubled levier's bonus a gesture pointing up the special relationship between them and a deed between kelly johnson and all of his test pilots unlike so many of his peers johnson both understood and appreciated what his pilots did he flew with them whenever possible shared their concerns always listened and then acted on their recommendations the xp-80a's problems were quickly remedied and it went on to become the prototype for america's first operational jet fighter though it wouldn't enter combat in world war ii the p80 shooting star would deliver awesome performance in january of 1946 for example colonel william council completed the first non-stop transcontinental jet flight covering 2 450 miles in a record 4 hours and 13 minutes an average speed of 580 miles per hour in june of 1947 flying a specially modified p80r colonel albert boyd completed four runs over a speed course at murak averaging 623 miles per hour and reclaiming the world speed record for the united states for the first time in 24 years and over korea in november of 1950 a shooting star put down a mig 15 in history's first all jet combat an aptly confirming johnson's methods and his insistence on simplicity the p80 would give birth to a number of progeny shrewdly sensing the need for a jet trainer johnson gambled one million dollars of lockheed money on the development of an f-80c airframe into a two-seat configuration which after its first flight in march 1948 was transformed into the classic t-33 an airplane affectionately called the t-bird which would serve as the standard jet trainer for legions of student pilots around the world for the next three decades [Music] in response to an urgent air force requirement for an interim all-weather interceptor the t-33 in turn served as the basis for three different models of the f-94 starfire which filled a critical void of newer designs specifically tailored for that role remained under development in the early 1950s [Music] not done yet the now vinnie's design would realize its final incarnation as the t2v1c star an advanced navalized version of the t33 all of the iterations of the p80 design were still yet to come however as in 1946 he started design work to meet an air force requirement for a new penetration escort fighter early on he explored the possibility of applying new concepts a delta wing even in-flight variable wing sweep and then discarded both some of the more than 60 concepts he'd examine and reject when the xf90 finally rolled out three years later he was the victim of ever-changing and conflicting requirements from a time to climb of 35 thousand feet in ten minutes to fifty thousand in five nine hundred mile range to fifteen hundred and then back to six hundred and finally ground attack capability and a high speed high altitude design this prompted him to build a brawny airframe over thirty thousand pounds fully loaded and stressed for over twelve g's when tony levier took off on early test flights he had to use rocket assist because the pair of small three thousand pound thrust g34s still lacked afterburning capability the usual post-flight congratulations and festivities belied the fact that johnson knew he was facing terrible odds with the same pair of inadequate engines as their principal rival the macdonald xf-88 it half again is heavy because the 88 hadn't been beefed up for ground attack johnson's airplane was bound to suffer performance wise it was overweight and underpowered and even when afterburning was finally added boosting combined thrust up to more than eight thousand pounds its top speed and level flight is only 668 miles per hour slower than existing operational f-86s it achieved one distinction however but in april 1950 levier pushed over into a steep dive and it became the first lockheed airplane to exceed the speed of sound with performance no better than the xf-90s the mcdonald entry won the competition but neither design went into production the whole ordeal taught johnson never again to take on a job unless the requirements were both well defined and firm even though a failure the xf90 went on to demonstrate that he certainly knew how to build a rugged airframe as in april of 1952 it survived the first of a series of atomic blasts suffering only 20 hours worth of repair work meanwhile johnson was completing work on a much more unconventional airplane designed to meet a navy requirement for a vertical takeoff and landing or vetol fighter the xfv-1 was supposed to claw its way straight up by means of huge copper rotating props driven by a twin turbine power plant providing more power than the airplane's weight engine development lagged however and after test pilot hermann fish salmon first lifted off from the lake bed and what was now called edwards air force base in december 1953 the underpowered xfv-1 continued to rely on its makeshift landing gear for all takeoffs and landings once aloft however salmon was able to demonstrate that it could make satisfactory transitions from horizontal to vertical flight and that it could hover in the vertical attitude but lacking the promised power explaining in his words that it's awful hard to fly an airplane looking over your shoulder salmon wasn't eager to attempt vertical lift-offs or touchdowns neither was johnson believing a designer shouldn't be afraid to fly his own airplane had the integrity to recommend cancellation of the whole project by that time however he already had a much more promising design on the ramp at edwards when tony lavere first saw it he asked incredulously where the wings were but those tiny blade thin wings and everything else about the xf-104 were actually the product of years of careful thought effort and johnson's determination this time to employ skunk works methods back in 1947 it modified a p80 with wingtip mounted ram jets and with fish salmon at the controls it became the first piloted aircraft to fly on ram jet power alone these tests supported a major skunk works type of effort to explore a whole new realm at a time when missile and guidance system technologies were still in their infancy johnson's team had to design a pilotless mach 3 test bed to further explore ramjet technology the x7 was the product of their efforts and its tiny thin slightly tapered wings johnson's solution to the problems of high mock flight and thoroughly tested on rockets and with scale models the x-7 first flew in april 1951 and went on to a remarkable career launched from a b-29 boosted the high-speed more powerful rockets and then flying on various ramjets under test it ultimately exceeded mach 4 and climbed well above 100 000 feet [Music] thus those small thin wings were already more than just a theory johnson visited the korean battlefront in 1951 still smarting from the xf-90 he'd gone there to talk to the ultimate customers combat pilots about what they wanted in a fighter to a man it was higher speed more altitude and less complexity intent on giving them just that he made an unsolicited proposal to build a fighter for which no requirement yet existed when he promised mach 2 with 60 000 feet in a simple lightweight fighter colonel bruce holloway stepped into the next room and within two hours returned with a short one-and-a-half page list of requirements this time the firm straightforward requirement johnson returned to his favorite skunk works mode of operation and less than a year later in february of 1954 tony lavere lifted the xf-104 from the lake bed for its first flight though configured with a much lower thrust engine than the powerful j79 scheduled for the production model the xf-104 was still faster than any other fighter in the world but johnson had produced more than just a dazzling performer fanatical about costs and producibility while design of the prototypes was still underway he'd set up a small group of engineers to find the cheapest and most efficient way to produce each part of the production airplane an innovation which would result in savings of about twelve thousand dollars per aircraft and millions for his customers when the press finally got to see the f-104 they called it the missile with a man in it and they weren't far off the mark the first mach 2 operational aircraft in the world would want to shatter every significant record on the books 91 000 feet and 1400 miles per hour in may of 1958 making it the first aircraft ever to hold both the world altitude and speed marks simultaneously three time decline records later that year and in 1959 it became the first airplane taking off on its own power ever to climb above a hundred thousand feet as captain joe jordan zoomed up over 103 000 feet this kind of performance clinched the 1958 collier trophy for johnson while the starfighter was capturing headlines with record-breaking performances another much more exotic johnson design was unbeknownst to all but a few almost daily cruising in level flight at altitudes far beyond any official records it had been born of the massive arms buildup of the early 50s when u.s intelligence agencies urgently needed confirmation of reports of major soviet advances in intercontinental range bombers and ballistic missiles the decision to proceed with overflights led to a design competition for a reconnaissance aircraft capable of 70 000 feet lockheed hadn't been invited to participate johnson had caught wind of it and hastily submitted a proposal to build the cl280 essentially a modified f-104 with a widespan high aspect ratio wing though it lost out to the bell x-16 kelly johnson wasn't about to quit over the years he'd gotten to know a lot of people in high places and he developed consummate lobbying skills with a revised design and promising an airplane within just eight months he got the go-ahead to produce 20 aircraft for 22 million dollars the project codenamed aquatone was directed by the cia's richard bissell who found the skunk works streamlined informal method of getting things done much to his liking secrecy limited access to a mere handful of cia and air force personnel which was fine with johnson because it freed him from a lot of needless paperwork and interference the urgency of the project also freed him from what he regarded as the tyranny of technical specifications his customers simply wanted an airplane that could do the job and all he had to do was deliver on time while the article as it was called was a relatively conventional design the extreme altitudes at which it was supposed to operate impose severe demands forced to ruthlessly cut weight you reduce structural components to the minimum and design delicate glider-like wings spanning 80 feet and weighing less than four pounds per square foot the fragile airframe was designed to run a special high-altitude version of the j-57 engine virtually hand-built to extremely high tolerances and originally producing 10 500 pounds of thrust the disassembled aircraft was unloaded from a c-124 at a remote desert test site in july of 1955 johnson had met yet another seemingly impossible deadline after reassembly was rolled out into daylight for the first time painstakingly prepared for its taxi tests [Music] on august 1st as he had so many times in the past tony lavere climbed into the cockpit during his third run that day he suddenly noticed that he was more than 30 feet off the ground coming down hard the tires blew and the brakes failed caught fire reporting afterwards he explained that at 70 knots i became aware of being airborne which left me with utter amazement as i had no intentions whatsoever of flying those fragile wings had more than enough lift he completed the first real flight four days later and on a subsequent flight reported that the aircraft climbed toward the heavens like a homesick angel to conceal its true purpose the angel was given the misleading official designation u2 and a cover story was released to the effect that was being developed as a high altitude research vehicle for the national advisory committee for aeronautics while it would perform this role admirably tess focused on preparing the u-2 for its real mission carry 700 pounds of high-resolution camry equipment up to altitudes then beyond any air defense capabilities and in july 1956 just 11 months after first flight it commenced its clandestine operational career climbing to well above 70 thousand feet as fuel burned off u2 successfully completed flights over denied areas and brought back the first hard data on the status of soviet military preparedness and the true extent of its intercontinental ballistic missile program called the dragon lady by its pilots because it reminded them of the beautiful mysterious and sometimes treacherous character in the terry and the pirates cartoon strip it flew with virtual impunity for four years until that day in may of 1960 ratz's carry powers was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while deep penetration of soviet airspace came to a halt the u2 continued to overfly hot spots around the world such as in 1962 when it confirmed the existence of missile launch sites in cuba and it would also continue to perform an incredibly wide array of extremely high altitude research missions [Music] kelly johnson had reason to be proud of his angel the skunk works had finally been formally established as lockheed advanced development projects and on this its first production program he'd refunded two million dollars from the original 22 million dollar contract and built an additional five airplanes out of spare parts surely one of the best bargains in defense procurement history that pride was rekindled when the 1981 larger more sophisticated tr1 was rolled out years after u2 production had ended it was the first time the air force had ever put an aircraft back into production and it remains to this day the highest flying single-engine piloted aircraft in the world [Music] back in december of 1956 the skunk works remarkable performance on the u-2 had convinced lockheed to give johnson the job of designing and developing prototypes for a small military jet transport dollars were scarce competition keen and he'd only have eight months to do the job being on time had always been one of his cardinal rules and in just 241 days he delivered the jet star he'd actually been working on designs for a large jet transport since 1944 this trim little crab was actually a scaled-down version of the l-193 an innovative 1953 design which the airlines had feared too risky to support johnson who continued to put in long hours as a flight test engineer on this project was out to prove them wrong and he was more than pleased with the results the top speed of over 600 miles per hour a peak altitude of 52 000 feet and with wing tanks a range of over 3 000 miles the jet star easily won the competition and though only a limited number went into military service as c-140s ultimately more than 200 were produced and a great many of them remain in service to this day the jet star was a pleasant diversion as he worked on another much tougher project even as development of the u2 was still underway he projected that aerodefenses would catch up with it within two years and he'd initiated a remarkable series of design studies for a liquid hydrogen-fueled supersonic successor capable of climbing above 90 000 feet performance varied from mach 2.5 and a range of 2200 miles to mach 4 and 9 000 miles because of the extremely low volumetric density of liquid hydrogen however the latter speed and range capability could only be achieved by building an airframe twice the size of a b-52 that was far too costly and thus a much smaller design at the lower end of the performance spectrum went into development as the cl-400 in 1956. though the cl 400 proved the technical feasibility of a liquid hydrogen-powered aircraft johnson was dissatisfied with its short range and convinced that the problems of producing and transporting fuel around the world were insurmountable refusing to build an airplane he didn't believe in he recommended cancellation of the project in 1957 but he had an ace up his sleeve as concurrent with the liquid hydrogen studies he'd also examined the potential of another advanced design using jet fuel which had some loss in altitude promised mach 3 cruise and 4 000 mile range it was the genesis of his most spectacular creation given approval to proceed in april of 1958 johnson began a series of design studies unveiled publicly here for the first time for what he initially called the u3 and then the archangel because it would soar much higher than the u2 he explored various means by which you could get the vehicle to altitudes as high as 150 000 feet employing a variety or even a combination of rocket ramjet and turbojet power plants at one point he looked at the use of balloons to lift it to its rocket boost phase and then at using a modified u-2 to tow a ramjet vehicle to 60 000 feet for engine ignition even considered a multi-staged vehicle and one with inflatable wings and empanadas and throughout he was challenged by the urgent need to reduce radar cross-section for the first time stealth would have to be designed into the airplane the intense design gestation process was completed in just 16 months and when he presented his 12th concept to the cia and air force in august 1959 he got the go-ahead when the stunningly beautiful a-12 was finally rolled out for its initial tests in april 1962 it wasn't some fantastic multi-staged aberration it was an honest airplane but nothing like it had ever been built before ironically codenamed oxcart and designed for sustained mach 3.2 crews at altitudes between 75 and 95 000 feet it posed by far the greatest challenge of johnson's career as everything from structural materials to hydraulic fluid and fuels had to be invented from scratch for example because of the intense heat at sustained mach 3 speeds averaging more than 550 degrees on the surface of the airplane johnson employed a titanium alloy for more than 90 percent of the airframe but no one had ever before attempted to process such quantities of the extremely hard metal to the purity and strength levels required and thus new forging and milling processes had to be invented and perfected when the thin titanium skin on a wing panel shriveled up during heating tests johnson separated the panels from the wing spars with extrusions and put the now famous corrugations in the skin when heated thereafter the corrugations merely deepened a few thousands of an inch and on cooling returned to their original shape common sense solution to a difficult problem there were literally thousands of such problems to overcome and as always johnson stayed on top of all of them looking over people's shoulders asking lots of questions always the best way in his view to get people to solve problems and he continued to amaze everyone with for example on-the-spot predictions of skin temperatures which after hours of calculation they'd find were within one or two degrees of the exact figure the whole effort completed an absolute secrecy with an incredibly small group of people was all the more remarkable because it was done without the benefit of computers as johnson later recalled when you think back to 1958 when the basic design work on the prototypes for this airplane is being designed and built we had to make use of the michigan computer which is a 12-inch slide rule and it did its job quite well all of this prodigious effort was about to come to fruition on april 25th 1962 preparations for high-speed taxi and an initial brief liftoff were completed but as lou shaw sped down the runway he encountered nose wheel steering problems and had to kick in heavy right rudder then as johnson wrote in his lawn the aircraft got off the ground there was an immediate change of rudder angle this set up lateral oscillations which were horrible to see shock was lucky to get the airplane back on the ground the problem was fixed post haste and the next day he completed the first unofficial flight with the gear down [Music] on april 30th johnson was back with an entourage of vips for the official first flight looking like he didn't have a care in the world he offered a few last words of encouragement and advice before shock taxied out and from there everything went flawlessly [Music] 59 minutes later shock was back on the ground welcomed by an elated kelly johnson and the small awestruck assembly who just witnessed something very special [Music] limited by interim j75 engines the a12 didn't begin to realize its full potential until after the pratt whitney j58 for which it was designed finally arrived in january 1963. at 32 500 pounds of thrust the j-58 was every bit as exotic as the airplane itself in combination with an extremely complex inlet and exhaust ejector system it operated as a normal afterburning turbojet up to speeds of about 1600 miles per hour and then shifted to bleed bypass cycle with the inlet actually providing most of the thrust at mach 3 crews [Music] when a two-seat trainer became available in early 1963 johnson true to his convictions about flying his own aircraft jumped into the rear cockpit and taking control after climb out he'd fly supersonic for the first time in his life during the course of the test program a pair of airframes were modified for a highly unconventional mission in 1964 the skunk works built a small 42 foot long airframe with the very same materials used on the a-12 designed to overfly areas deemed too risky for air crews the d21 drone would ride piggyback atop an a12 for mach 3 launches at 80 000 feet and powered by a ram jet originally developed during the x7 program it would be even faster than the a12 [Music] the finished article was mounted to its mothership now designated m12 in december 1964. and on december 22 the unusual pair taxi for the first time and flight tests got underway after takeoff on launch missions the m12 climbed to a rendezvous with a kc-135 for refueling [Music] and then proceeded onto the predetermined launch point where the backseater would monitor the systems and initiate the launch procedures while there were several successful tests it was always a very risky business at best and kelly johnson personally cancelled this program after a fatal mid-air collision in 1966 by then however he already had two other very successful ox-cart progeny off the ground the first was the yf-12a prototype for a proposed high-speed interceptor it was this aircraft which went on public display but in 1964 president lyndon johnson announced the existence of the ae11 and it subsequently put on a dazzling show as in may 1965 claimed no less than nine world records including a top speed of more than 2 000 miles per hour and a sustained altitude of over 80 000 feet without in any way taxing its full potential the yf-12 was equipped with an advanced asg 18 doppler radar system and configured to carry three aim-47 missiles internally though missiles had never before been launched within the yf-12 speed and altitude regime the aircraft and its systems scored a reported 90 percent kill rate even against drones flying head-on down on the deck at distances of 120 miles and more the air force was impressed enough to order 93 of the big fighters into production for the air defense command but budgetary constraints ultimately resulted in their cancellation and shortly thereafter the a-12 was also removed from service leaving only the air force's sr-71 which took over its reconnaissance mission so everything about it and its activities would remain cloaked in a heavy shroud of secrecy this was the aircraft that everyone came to know as the blackbird a solid coat of black paint which seemed to add to its allure and mystery actually had a very practical purpose it reduced skin temperatures by about 75 degrees its clean elegant lines the smooth contours of its blended wing body shape give the impression that an artist had sculpted it into a rare work of art in aircraft design however more than any other field form follows function and here again every line every detail of the airplane exists only to serve some practical purpose the chimes for example which extend from the wing to the nose and float gracefully up into the fuselage actually satisfied a number of requirements aerodynamically they reduce drag and added lift while also enhancing the stability of the aircraft the sr-71's mission was long-range reconnaissance and its fuselage was essentially a big fuel tank and thus the chinese also served to house its sophisticated cameras and sensors finally those sloping contours extending up from the chimes enhance the airplane's survivability by reducing its radar cross section thus while an artist might envy its striking beauty an engineer that only marveled at the logical genius of its design that genius was recognized when in 1964 kelly johnson became the first person ever to be awarded a second collier trophy the sr-71 went on to claim the world absolute speed and altitude records and then repeatedly extended them and to the public it always remained kelly johnson's mysterious record-breaking black bird the crews who flew it however had another name for it throughout its long operational career it remained invincible and incredibly effective and to its crews it was haboo dark-skinned pit viper with a deadly bite and though it was finally retired from air force service in 1990 kelly johnson's mach 3 masterpiece is still charting the future its crews still looking up toward the blue black void of space flying exotic research missions for the national aeronautics and space administration [Music] [Music] when he retired in 1975 kelly johnson had been on the cutting edge of an advance from 200 to more than 2 000 miles per hour he'd been involved in the design of 44 different airplanes many of them among the classics of aviation history and at the time he was still looking very much into the future he'd gotten the skunk works into a project which would bear fruit in the f-117a world's first true stealth aircraft [Music] and it left a legacy which would leave its mark on the future [Music] it seems kind of ironic that a lowly creature known primarily for its odoriferous emanations had by the time kelly retired become a universal symbol for excellence what was his secret [Music] well he had a remarkable capacity to take a complex problem reduce it to its simplest components and then take the most direct and sensible approach to its solution always a maverick he was smart enough and tough enough not to follow the committee rule of conventional wisdom this gave him remarkable freedom with that freedom came a tremendous burden of responsibility finally and most important he understood himself well enough to realize that with a few good people you can do remarkable things kelly johnson's greatest legacy wasn't just what he did but the way he did it you

Channel: DroneScapes

Views: 419,372

Keywords: skunk works, kelly johnson, kelly johnson documentary, kelly johnson interview, kelly johnson lockheed, sr-71 blackbird, f-104 starfighter, f-104a, p-38 lightning, u-2 spy plane, u-2 dragon lady, skunk works documentary, skunk works history, skunk works sr 71, skunk works aircraft, skunk works sr-72, u-2 dragon lady aircraft, f-104a starfighter, sr-71 blackbird documentary, skunk works projects, AdKey:3-Xg6wP8wBnrop, Lockheed skunk works kelly johnson, aviation history

Id: B1JHGNFU5cQ

Length: 56min 53sec (3413 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 07 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Ok-Low6320]

Kelly Johnson is one of my heroes, but he died before I had a chance to meet him. Ben Rich was his successor, and is also one of my heroes, but... uh... he also died before I had a chance to meet him.

Anyway, I love the SR-71, most things aircraft, and worked for Lockheed Martin professionally for 5 years.

Woo!

[u/GrayRoberts]

I mean, he was also responsible for the F-104, so…

[u/waddlek]

The list of aircraft that he had a hand in designing is staggering…

Johnson contributed to the design of the following Lockheed aircraft: Model 9D Orion

          Model 10 Electra

          Model 12 Electra Junior

          Model 14 Super Electra

          Model 18 Lodestar

          PV-1 Ventura

          P-38 Lightning

          Constellation

                         L-049 Constellation

                         L-149 Constellation

                         C-69 Constellation

                         L-649 Constellation

                         L-749 Constellation

                         C-121/R7O/R7V Constellation

                         PO-1W/WV-1 Warning Star

                         L-1049 Super Constellation

                         PO-2W/WV-2/WV-3/EC-121

                         YC-121F/R7V-2 Constellation

          L-1649 Starliner

          F-80 Shooting Star

                         T-33

                         TV-2

          P2V Neptune

          XF-90

          F-94 Starfire

          X-7

          F-104 Starfighter

          F-117A Nighthawk

          C-130 Hercules

          U-2

          SR-71

                         A-12

                         YF-12

                         M-21

                         D-21

          JetStar/C-140