WEBVTT - Sniffing Out Skunk Works Part One 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:08.119 Get in test with technology with text stuff from com. 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:16.720 Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.520 and today we're gonna talk to you guys about something secret, 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:25.520 super duper secret, like above top secret secret. And we're 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.720 talking about Lockheed skunk Works. So skunk works has become 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.440 sort of a term that lots of different companies use, 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.400 although it is proprised area. Yeah, so not officially do 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.120 they use it, but skunk works has come to mean 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:42.320 like a a division or a project within a company 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.919 that is not hampered by bureaucracy, red tape, you know. There, 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:52.199 it's people given the freedom to works. Uh yeah, the 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:54.720 black ops kind of things that like the X Files 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.520 really enjoys talking about. Yeah, so, but it can be anything, right, 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.040 Like we've got another episode that we just did, the 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.040 Google Loon, which really that's part of Google X, which 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.000 in a way is kind of a skunk works for Google. 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.959 It's top secret, super advanced research. Perhaps less top secret 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.000 than the stuff that Lockheed skunk Works has been working on, 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.600 because they tend to be working on contracts for the 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.959 US government, yes, and specifically the military exactly. So we're 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.559 talking about stuff that is at least on some level, 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:27.800 meant to protect people rights, meant to protect real human lives, 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.760 and therefore secrecy is important to maintain that. But before 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:33.680 we get into skunk works, we really need to just 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.840 give a quick overview of Lockheed Martin. Now, Lockheed Martin 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.240 as an entity is relatively recent the past couple of decades, 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.760 but both Lockheed and Martin have existed since the beginning 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.240 of the century. Yeah, nineteen twelve August sixteen, that's when 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.760 Glenn L. Martin, who was a pilot and someone who 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.000 would who built his own planes, had his first flight 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.440 back in nineteen o nine, But in nineteen twelve that's 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.640 when he formed the Glenn L. Martin Company in Los 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.240 Angeles and he was building planes there. On December nineteenth, 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:10.040 nine twelve, two brothers Alan and Malcolm Lockheed, who also 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.760 were in the process of building their own aircraft, although 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.480 they wouldn't have their first flight until nine, they founded 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:20.799 the Alco Hydro Aeroplane Company, which later they decided to 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.840 call the Lockheed Aircraft Company UM. And they were really 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.280 specializing early on in building fast sea planes that established 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:34.639 many speed and distance records for overwater flights. So, uh, 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.880 these guys all were at the very beginning. Yeah, we're 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.240 talking like airplanes had barely existed when these companies started 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.880 making stuff, not fall out of the sky. Yeah right, 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.160 And uh so it's funny. I like, I was reading 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.160 up on some of the engineers, and I kept coming 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.120 across names that I recognized, like Donald Douglas and James 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.640 McDonald which anyone who's flown a lot starts to recognize 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.400 these names because we have aircraft named after them. Um. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:06.080 And both companies were absolutely instrumental in in defining what 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:11.280 the early airplane industry was. And also they were really 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:15.640 instrumental in helping the US military get its place in 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.600 an error combat. Right Without Without the engineers who would 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:21.760 come out of these companies, I don't think that we 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.400 would have done as well in um, several of the 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.280 wars that we've participated in. Yeah, not to mention just 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.720 commercial flight, because a lot of the developments that we 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.800 would have coming to the military flights would end up 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.680 being used in commercial aspects. Now, when we talk about 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.280 skunk works, were mostly talking about military because it's really 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.640 the top secret stuff. Uh. And we'll get more into that. 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.520 Before we get into get that far, we should talk 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.280 about some other early stuff at Lockheed. For example, in 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:55.520 nineteen thirty, Lockheed built a prototype two seater pursuit aircraft 0:03:55.600 --> 0:04:00.000 fighter called the XP nine hundred, and the US military 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.680 he ended up purchasing the prototype and redesignated it the 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.560 y P twenty four, and eventually they ordered five why 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:11.600 one P twenty four fighters and four why one A 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.920 nine attack aircraft. Now here's the fun thing about this podcast. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.320 Y'all gonna be lettle letters and numbers. It's it's pretty unavoidable. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.680 I I think that probably what's going to happen is 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.080 Jonathan is going to read those out. I am going 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.279 to say the nice nickname that someone has come up 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:28.240 for these things, and then we will proceed to call 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.640 it that nickname forever and ever and ever. Right, and 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:32.240 I don't have a nickname for these, so I'm just 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.080 calling him Bob. Bob was never actually built. Because here's 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.280 the thing that so the U. S Military had ordered 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.040 aircraft from Lockheed, but there was something else that happened 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.159 right around nineteen thirty, little thing called the Great Depression, which, 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.240 by the way, guys, wasn't so great. Pretty pretty crappy. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.839 Now it's a pretty crappy depression. It was huge F 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.760 minus would not would not buy from again. No, no, yes, 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.599 I do not recommend um. Yeah. So great Depression obviously 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:04.040 was a devastating economic, uh global economic disaster. Yeah. And 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.240 Lockheed itself would go into bankruptcy in nineteen thirty two. 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:10.080 They go into bankruptcy. They were only bankrupt for five 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.160 whole days. After that, a group of investors kind of 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.040 swooped in and safed them, didn't it. Yep, yep. They 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.159 poured enough money to keep the company going. But those 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.120 five days, I mean the fact that Lockeed had been 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.440 struggling so for so long and then had finally gone 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.400 into bankruptcy, had had done a lot of damage, and 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.960 so that that plan to build those early aircraft with 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.120 the military fell through. So that would not be the 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:37.200 first aircraft order that Lockheed would really fulfill for the military. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.960 But it wasn't too much longer after that that they 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:44.200 would manage to do it. Seven. Uh. There was an 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.040 important team led by how Hibberd and assisted by someone 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.200 who will become incredibly important in this podcast one, Clarence 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:55.120 Kelly Johnson. Yeah, and they were designing a new type 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.400 of fighter using twin engines called the XP thirty eight, 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.479 which eventually would be called the P thirty eight Lightning, 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.040 and it is awesome. It's been called the most maneuverable 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.320 and furthermore, the most beautiful plane in the Allied Forces 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.680 and in what would become the Allied Forces in World 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:12.960 War Two. It was if you've never seen a picture 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.480 of this, you need to look for the the P 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:20.640 thirty eight Lightning. Uh. It is is a particularly striking design. 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.360 It's it's these kind of jets for kids who are 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.160 my age. I'm gonna show my age here in second, 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.120 the kids my age who grew up in the realm 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.360 of G. I. Joe. And that was a big cartoon 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.280 on television. If you look at the law of the 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:35.640 vehicle designs from G. I. Joe you can see a 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.680 lot of it has has drawn inspiration from these early aircraft, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.920 these very classic things, right. Um. Furthermore, it was an 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.400 impressive feed for the time, capable of speeds of four 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.039 miles per hour, which is about six per hour. Yeah, 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.440 that's pretty fast for the for it's time. Obviously, aircraft 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:55.640 today leave that in the dust. But right well, we're 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:59.480 still talking about engines that use moving parts and not turbines. 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.520 We're talking for pellers. Yeah, yeah, this this is before 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:06.159 the jet era. So ninety eight, Lockheed had the Model 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.520 fourteen Super Electra, which was a plane that ended up 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.920 breaking the speed record for circling the globe. It only 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.600 took three days, nineteen hours and fourteen minutes to get 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.280 all the way around the Earth. And uh yeah, and 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:22.120 of course it was piloted by a famous crazy guy, right, 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.640 Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes. It's got to be difficult piloting 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.640 and electra when you've got boxes on your hands and 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.000 feet the whole time, and you know, especially if you 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:32.960 don't want to upset the jars of urine that you 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.600 have in the back. Howard Hughes was crazy, y'all. I 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.120 imagine he did not bring I actually think this was 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.640 I don't imagine that that was actually the same. I'm 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.280 pretty sure that by nine he wasn't quite uh showing 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:51.960 the the real symptoms of his later kind of disturbing behavior. 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.080 You know, he became a hermit, a recluse, But that 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.440 was later on. I think he was still you know, 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:01.440 he pretty much had it together that point. At any rate. 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.160 In um, that's that's when we're going to really get 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.520 started on these big military contracts. Right. Yeah, that's when 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.760 the US Army Air Corps, which was the predecessor for 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:16.040 the United States Air Force UH decided to ask for 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:18.200 a new jet fighter and they kind of put out 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.680 the world a jet fighter period. I mean, okay, that 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.200 the things is that previously the Army had kind of 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.640 rejected development of these propellerless jet engines in the thirties 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:29.720 because they didn't think it could be done until the 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.079 Germans went and did it, right, and then they said, well, 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.280 you know what, I guess we need some of let's 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:36.560 do some of those things. So they kind of put 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.640 out the request for proposal asking various companies to put 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:45.280 forth their their proposed solution to this, and Lockeed wanted 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.520 to throw its hat in the ring, and they decided 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.599 that the best way to to innovate quickly would be 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.480 to create a special division within Lockheed that was not 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.320 going to have to answer to the corporate level at 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.240 the same kind of bureau addic process that everyone else 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.240 had to write, and that would wind up being the 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:10.079 basis of the skunk Works ideology for forever until now. Right. So, 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.280 originally it was called, you know, the official official name 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.400 is the Lockheed Advanced Development Projects and then later it 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.439 was renamed officially to Advanced Development Programs a d P. 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:25.800 But it's official nickname, which, like we said, it's it's trademarked. 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.000 It's got a logo is of course, skunk Works. And 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.240 the logo, by the way, is a skunk. It's it's 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.400 the cutest little skunk that has ever adorned machines. War 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.080 It's just about almost as cute as flower from Bambi, 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.760 but not quite but close. And so you might wonder, 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.240 why the heck would they be called skunk Works? Where's 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.720 that name come from? Okay, So the story goes that 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.440 when when this division was first started up, they you know, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.280 it was wartime. Lockheed did not have any room on 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.360 their main floors for this new division. So they started up, 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:01.120 uh Mr Clarence Kelly Johnson UM bought a circus tent 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.080 and set it up somewhere like I imagine, in a 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.400 parking lot on the property of this facility and UM 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.160 and it happened to be next to a plastics manufacturing 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.000 plant which was really quite stinky yep. And so that 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:18.920 stinky odor ended up completely saturating that circus tent, making 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.040 it a very smelly place. And you know, but but 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:23.559 but it was all very secretive. You know, all the 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.040 projects that they were working on are really the one project, 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.240 this jet engine project that they were working on. It 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:30.560 couldn't be talked about. And so they were told when 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.440 they answered phones to to not say what they were 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.560 doing or give any kind of indication. And supposedly when 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.560 one engineer answered a phone, he he made this joke. 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.280 And and this joke is a little bit out of 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.920 my reach personally, having never read the comic strip Little Abner, 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.160 Um this, this is one of those newspaper comics from 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.520 the time. Um. But apparently in in this comic strip 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.360 there was something called the Skunk Works. Yes s k 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.960 O n K. It was a kind of a play 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.280 full misspelling of skunk because it's it was a couple 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.480 of country bumpkins who ran this um this this uh 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.080 still well it's not even a still really, because it 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.880 wasn't moonshine they were making. They were making Kickapoo juice, 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.920 and Kickapoo juice was made out of pretty much anything 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:18.600 they could get their hands on, and it was supposed 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.360 to be up to including skunks moose. The moose were 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.800 very popular because they would say lacks body, so they 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.040 would go knock a body unconscious to throw it into 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.160 the mix. And uh yeah, kickapoo juice was supposed to 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.920 be the most powerful alcohol. And dog Patch. Dog Patch, 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.240 by the way, is the location where Little Abner takes place. Okay, 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.800 all right, but but so so this engineer answered the 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.680 phone like like, hello, this is Skunk Works because it 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.679 was stuck and and it's stuck and and eventually, um, 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:50.400 I believe after the Little Abner lawyers gave them a call, 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.679 they changed it officially to Skunk Works. Yeah, so that 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:57.400 would happen later. That would happened later. They so they 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:01.840 started trying to develop a jet plane based around a 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.760 jet engine that had was not developed at Lockheed. In fact, 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:06.600 it was it was developed by the British is called 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:12.400 the Goblin. And before they really got down to designing this, 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.679 Kelly came out. Kelly Johnson came out and kind of 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:17.960 laid down the law. He sort of came up with 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.000 a philosophy. He was thirty three years old at the time, 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.080 which is just incredible to me. Yeah, it's a young 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:27.240 man who comes up with fourteen guiding principles, rules and 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.520 practices or what they're called. And we're not gonna read 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:32.520 out all fourteen, but I've got six of them I 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.480 would like to. Yeah. Yeah, So they're this pretty much 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.000 is just kind of the overview of how skunk Works 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.040 business gets done in order for them to do it 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.240 expediently at the quality they wanted. So number one was 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.679 the skunk Works manager must be delegated practically complete control 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.120 of his program in all aspects. He should report to 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.440 a division president or higher, meaning that Kelly wanted to 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:57.200 make sure that he had the authority to make the 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.720 decisions he needed to make in order to deliver upon 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.880 the these incredibly lucrative contracts and uh. And he felt 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.840 that if he had to dance around all these corporate levels, 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.680 that would slow things down and they would lose. So 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.680 he said, we can't have that. So that's rule number one. Uh, 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.480 we'll skip over a couple of Rule number three is 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.560 the number of people having any connection with the project 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.800 must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:24.200 small number of good people ten to twenty compared to 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.760 the so called normal systems. So these are really small, 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.199 nimble teams, and that was important for multiple reasons. One again, 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.080 he wanted to be able to move quickly, and the 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.600 more voices you have than you know you might have, 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.920 and it just slows everything down. And also because these 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.400 projects were top secret, it's a lot easier to keep 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:45.439 a secret if you keep the number of people who 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.600 know it to a small minimum. Yeah, I tell you, 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.600 you tell like twenty five people a secret, that secret 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:53.720 is gonna get out eventually. But if you tell two thousand, 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.880 five hundred people that secret, that secret, you might as 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:57.600 well not even make the secret in the first place. 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.400 That's why I don't tell anyone my secrets, especially podcast 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.200 as you can't trust us. Yeah, I'll tell you guys 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.240 a secret. Number five is there must be a minimum 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.920 number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly. Again, 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.760 this was to cut down the bureaucratic approach that didn't 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.240 have to keep on making reports over and over, taking 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.480 time away from actually doing the work. But he did 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.720 say that it's important that we record what we do 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.600 because accountability still has to be maintained. You can't just 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.080 have no accountability whatsoever. That would be a disaster. As well. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.720 Number twelve, there must be mutual trust between the military 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.080 project organization and the contractor, the very close cooperation in 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.640 liaison on a day to day basis that this cuts 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.960 down misunderstanding and correspondence to an absolute minimum, again cutting 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:47.440 out all that interference. Number thirteen. Access by outsiders to 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.400 the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.200 appropriate security measures. This would actually come into a really 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.560 important story later on in skunk Works where people who 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.680 genuinely wanted to help we're not allowed on the premises 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.440 and it ended up destroying a project in the process. 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.040 Number fourteen is because only a few people will be 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.680 used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.720 provided to reward good performances by pay, not based on 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.200 the number of personnel supervised. I think this was Kelly's 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.480 way of saying, I wants to get my money, y'all 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:22.000 Shakespeare to get paid, yeah, Because you know, this is 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.120 essentially saying I might have these really small teams that 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.520 I've asked for, but don't base my pay on how 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.280 many people I oversee. Based my pay on the results 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.840 that we get, which which we mostly include. Because we 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.120 were a little bit entertained by by all of these 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.440 like really imported. I mean, these these kind of business 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:42.240 structures have been used throughout corporate America and the world 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:47.120 exactly since the inception of skunk Works, but tacked onto 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.680 the end like get dudes paycheck, yes, which you know, 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.480 t again makes sense because it's not just it's not 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.520 just Kelly here, we're poking fun at Kelly, but honestly 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.640 referred to anyone who was a project leader, right because 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.480 again and if your project is incredibly important but it 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.000 has fewer people on it then say a typical project 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.960 in the main branch of Lockheed, you don't want that 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:09.800 to count against you. So that was he was really 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.320 looking out for his people. So even though we're making 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.680 light of it, he was. He was actually he was 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.480 being very thoughtful exactly. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I mean, 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.480 practicality was overall the thing of this that the mantra 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.880 of the entire operation is is quick, quiet, and quality. Yep, 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.120 he wants all three of those things. It has to 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.880 be secret, it has to be done on schedule, and 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.360 it has to be uh, you know, has to meet 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.240 the qualifications that the military laid out. In fact, that 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.440 was another one of his rules was that let's be 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:40.640 really clear about what the expectations are, so that we 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:42.920 can meet them and not waste time on things that 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.960 are not important to whatever the expectations are. So yeah, 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.120 top secret operation. In fact, employees were not allowed to 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.960 talk about what they were working on with anyone who 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.240 wasn't on their project team. So even other people who 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:57.880 are working in skunk Works at the time, you were 0:16:57.880 --> 0:16:59.960 not allowed to talk about what it was you were 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.720 working on if that person wasn't also on that project. 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.880 So um, this one carry over to one of the 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.399 great testing facilities that would come into existence about a 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.000 decade later. We'll mention it a couple of times, but 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:13.960 it's one of my favorite subjects that I still I'm 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:19.000 determined to do an episode on sometime in the future. Anyway, Uh, 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.159 it's almost as though we continually get prevented from doing it. 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:24.760 I know. It's some kind of shadowy forces, almost like 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.320 some gentlemen wearing black suits will occasionally show up outside 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:29.919 of the offices of How Stuff Works and say, you 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.760 really don't want to talk about that, namely Alex Trebec 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.440 and Jesse Ventura sometimes sometimes been Bowlen, and you think, 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.240 like I thought he was on our side, but no, 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.879 he's working for the man anyway. So another thing that 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.240 we can mention is that the secrecy went beyond just 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:47.840 you know, don't talk about it, right. They went so 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:52.440 far as to start to disguise the buildings themselves. Right, Um, Yeah, 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:54.919 they had decoy buildings and they would cover some of 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.399 them or all of them in camouflage and netting and 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.880 stuff like that. Yeah, because you know, Pearl Harbor demonstrated 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:05.560 the value of being able to hide potential high value targets, 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.080 and you know, they were going to be working on 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.880 super secret projects for the military, so they considered themselves 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.399 a potential target. So this was really kind of a 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:17.159 practical approach to trying to minimize that the chance that 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.200 they would be hit by some enemy aircraft carrying bombs. 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.960 So they actually went to great pains to to disguise 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.720 their campus. Now, the very first jet that they started 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.800 working on, the one that had that Goblin jet engine 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:36.080 from the British, was designated the XP eight E jet fighter. 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.840 So the team started work on that in nineteen forty three, 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:44.320 four months before they were officially awarded the contract for 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.720 the project. And it would turn out that this apparently 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:52.200 was sort of yeah, that was essentially the military would say, hey, 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.280 you know what, we sure could use an an aircraft 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.720 that does this, this, and this, and the skull corks 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.560 would a we could do that for you know, we 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.080 might whip something up. They shake hands and then skunk 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.760 work goes out and pours a lot of time, money, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.159 and effort into developing it, and then months later the 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.159 contract comes through. Oh yeah, yeah with it with the 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.919 understanding that eventually the money would come. And you know, 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.320 this was partially due to the or largely I think 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.800 due to the cleverness and machinations of Kelly Johnson, because 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.600 he uh he also in stated himself as the only 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.000 person who would get to talk to Air Force officers 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.200 and CIA agents. Um, yeah, there's a great everything comes 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:37.040 through him, which you know, which really streamlines the process exactly. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:38.639 you had that and puts him up as a as 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.000 a reliable He was the central voice. I mean, it 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.640 meant that you weren't going to get mixed messages because 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.240 everything was going through one source. I also have a 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.359 fun little thing I can talk about and a little 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.359 bit about about what it was like to go along 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.760 with Kelly on one of these meetings with the CIA. 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.199 I've heard him referred to as like W. C. Fields 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:00.480 without the sense of humor. Yeah, and this case, it 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.240 was more about the links they went to to try 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.879 and prevent being overheard, which I thought was amusing. But 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:08.639 we've got a lot more we're going to talk about 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:10.720 as far as skunk Works goes. Before we do that, 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.040 let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:18.440 So ninety three they got that contract. Ninety four they 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:23.879 delivered the x P eighty Lulu Bell prototype jet fighter. Uh. 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.600 This was only a hundred and forty three days after 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.000 that kind of handshake deal had occurred. It was just 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.359 under five months and a little bit earlier than planned. Yeah, 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.000 by a full week. They delivered it a week ahead 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.920 of schedule. Uh. And the jet fighter would eventually become 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.919 known as the Lockheed P eighty Shooting Star. And that 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.080 was the very first jet fighter used by the U. S. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.840 Army Air Forces. So some of the bombers that were 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:52.240 operating in Europe during the tail end of World War Two, absolutely, Um, 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.560 we're we're helped out by the creation of this vehicle. Right, 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:58.320 It's just that they weren't designed to do actual military 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.080 work yet, Like they couldn't fly a combat mission. They 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:04.240 weren't outfitted for that, and it wouldn't happen until after 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:06.920 the conclusion of World War Two. They would be used 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.680 later in the Korean War. Yes, so you might wonder 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.240 what looks like, Well, it's a single theater, single theater jet. 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.439 It's pretty simple, like a basic jet design that if 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.840 you can imagine what a fighter jet looks like, it 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:20.119 looks like a small version of that. That's what it 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.240 was by night. So a little four years later they 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.440 developed the T thirty three T Bird, which is also 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.600 known as the T thirty three Shooting Star, which is 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.000 mostly used at least in the United States. Was mostly 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.040