The Genius Who Created The SR-71 Blackbird

This is the SR71 Blackbird. It's one of the most incredible achievements of modern engineering. It can fly more than three times the speed of sound at more than twice the altitude of a commercial airliner. It's built from molded titanium and coated in special paint that makes it almost invisible to radar. And even if it did get picked up on enemy radar, the Blackbird could just outrun any incoming missiles. It's basically top gun in real life. Just think about it. It flies at Mach 3, so you can be anywhere in the world in just a few hours. But who designed this incredible plane? Why was it made in the first place? And how can technology companies harness that same spirit today? This is the story of Lockheed's Skunk Works division and the man who made it possible. Our story begins in the 1920s in a sleepy Michigan mining town named Ishpeming. The town is named after the Ojibwe word for in the air. This would prove to be a good omen. World War I was over, and this small community, which had proudly sent its men to the front as part of the 32nd Red Arrow Division, was trying to get back to what it knew normality. Ichpeming was home to the Johnson family. Peter and Christine had migrated all the way from Sweden. They settled down and had nine kids. One of them, Clarence, is the hero of this story. From an early age, Clarence loved designing and building things. He would spend hours on end at the local library, devouring books like the Rover Boys and the Tom Swift series. By the time he was 12, Clarence had already designed his first model airplane. He called it the Merlin 1 battle plane. A year later, he won his first prize for aircraft design. Spoiler alert. It wouldn't be his last. Clarence had found his calling. Not everyone, however, understood this quietly determined boy. At grade school, Clare, Clarence was bullied. Other boys teased him. They called him Clara. One morning, after the usual routine started up again, Clarence fought back. There was a scuffle, and the bully ended up with a broken leg. That was the last day he was ever called Clara. From then on, Clarence had a new nickname, Kelly, from a popular song of the day called has anyone here seen Kelly? He must have liked it because it stuck with him for life. By the time Kelly entered the University of Michigan, childhood curiosity had matured into brilliance. He won two scholarships in a single year and worked as an assistant to the head of the university's aeronautical engineering department. He was still just as passionate about airplane design as the day he won his first prize. And his passion was about to Find a perfect outlet. On the morning of June 21, 1932, a neatly dressed Harvard grad stood in a courtroom in LA holding a single white envelope. The judge on the other side of the bench was responsible for selling off a bankrupt company, yet another victim of the Great Depression. He asked if there were any bidders. Only the Harvard grad stepped forward. He slid the white envelope onto the judge's bench. It contained $40,000 money cobbled together from a consortium of investors. It was all he had, but it was enough. The judge said to him, I hope young man, that you know what you're doing. That young man's name was Robert E. Gross. The company he bought was the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and he would spend the next 28 years of his life proving that he did know exactly what he was doing. Gross's first bet to resurrect Lockheed was an all metal passenger plane called the Model 10. Models of the design were sent to the University of Michigan's Aeronautical Engineering department which happened to have a talented grad student by the name of Kelly Johnson. Kelly conducted the wind tunnel tests for the Model 10. Although his faculty advisors gave the design a passing grade, Kelly wasn't impressed. He took his concerns straight to Lockheed's chief design engineer, Hal Hibbard. By then Kelly had impressed the people at Lockheed enough to be hired as a tool designer. He was just 23 years old but he was confident enough to tell the chief design engineer that the aircraft which was supposed to save the company was unstable. And instead of telling him to know his place, Hibbard gave Kelly a go back into the wind tunnel and improve the design. After 72 Test runs, Kelly came up with a solution. An unconventional twin tail that would go on to become a Lockheed benchmark. The Model 10 put Lockheed on the map as a first class aircraft manufacturer. And in the middle of it all was Kelly Johnson and his 72 Test runs. With his work on the design, the Kelly was promoted and became the sixth member of Lockheed's engineering department. The Model 10, better known as the Electra, was a great plane in its own right. But it was a modified version of this plane that became even more significant to this story. The successor in question was the Model 14, the Super Electra. The Super Electra was a great passenger plane and its size and speed made it the aircraft of choice for some audacious record attempts. In May of 1938, a team of aviators from the Polish national airline used a model 14H for an experimental three and a half day flight from LA to Warsaw. Via South America and Africa. While the notorious and reclusive Howard Hughes used his super Electra for his own global circumnavigation flight. The Model 14's innovative features intrigued the British Royal Air Force. They thought that with a redesign it would make a good anti submarine patrol plane. And with dark storm clouds gathering over Europe, they needed it sooner rather than later. So they gave Lockheed just three days to rework the Model 14. That wouldn't be the last time that a government gave Lockheed a super tight deadline. Picture the scene. A 28 year old farm boy from Ishpeming, Michigan is holed up in a London hotel room with just three days to design a new aircraft. One that the British Air Force needed for a war that was looking more inevitable by the day. Kelly Johnson worked around the clock, barely stopping to eat, let alone sleep. And he delivered it on time. The Model 14 became known as the Hudson bomber. A plane which would go on to play an important role in World War II where it would be praised by pilots for its superb maneuverability. Officials at the British Air Ministry were so amazed by Kelly's new design that they asked Lockheed managers if they could really entrust such an important aircraft to someone so young. The response was unequivocal. Lockheed had complete faith in Kelly Johnson and they proved it by promoting him to chief research engineer. The Hudson was a huge turning point for Lockheed. Now when the US Government needed a new aircraft design, they knew who to call. Just in time too, because war was now on the horizon and it was approaching rapidly. In early 1938 the US Air Force issued a proposal for a twin engine interceptor which could operate at high altitude. The accompanying specifications were the toughest they had ever put out. The aircraft had to maintain a maximum airspeed of at least 360 miles per hour and climb to 20,000ft in just six minutes. Kelly Johnson believed Lockheed could do it and he was right. But the design process was the most complex challenge of his young career. He quickly noticed that at speeds of more than 500 mph, airflow over certain parts of the plane was reaching supersonic velocity that caused the plane to violently shake and nose over into dead dangerously steep dives at altitude. Turning the Model 14 into the Hudson bomber took a Herculean work ethic. Solving this problem needed all of that work ethic plus tons of problem solving. Kelly Johnson's eventual solution was to install a dive flap that restored lift. The product of all this tinkering was the Lockheed P38 nicknamed Lightning. The Lightning excelled in combat. It went on to destroy more enemy aircraft in World War II than any other Allied fighter. The Nazis called it the fork tailed devil. But Kelly still wasn't fully satisfied. It had taken him years to iron out that persistent nosedive problem. Next time, he told himself, he'd do it a different way. Next time, as it turned out, would arrive very soon. His experience designing the Lightning confirmed Kelly's suspicions. The days of prop driven aircraft were numbered. And like all good engineers, Kelly had already acted on his suspicions. He had spent three years trying to crack the code of jet propulsion. So when the US government needed a jet fighter, Lockheed was in a strong position. Turning the Model 14 into the Hudson bomber took a Herculean work ethic. Powered by two turbojets, it could reach speeds of more than 600mph. Surprisingly though, the design was rejected. Instead the Air Force opted for the P59 era comet, designed by Bell Aircraft. This was a big moment. Bell was one of Lockheed's main competitors. They were applying pressure and now they were winning contracts from right under Lockheed's nose. Kelly Johnson was angry at the perceived snub. He knew this was make or break for Lockheed. But then fate intervened. The Air Comet's performance was so underwhelming that it was deemed unfit for service and half of the original order was canceled. Bell tried to revise the design, but they were already swamped with the responsibility of manufacturing other planes. And by then the pressure to produce was really on. Because in the spring of 1943 the Allies discovered something that terrified them. Intelligence showed that the Germans were conducting advanced test flights for an aircraft that could have changed the course of the war. The culmination of top secret work that Germany started before the war broke out. The Messerschmitt was the world's first fighter jet. And the Allies knew that if they entered the battlefield without a worthy rival, then Germany could gain air superiority over the skies of Europe. That wasn't a scenario that anyone on the Allied side was prepared to entertain. The chief of the Air Force, General Harry Hap Arnold, was dismayed that America had been caught on the back foot. He knew that choosing the mediocre Bell era Comet was a mistake. And he understood that a second mistake could prove disastrous. So in his hour of need he turned to the Air Force's most reliable manufacturing partner, Lockheed. Kelly Johnson promised delivery of an aircraft in just 180 days. But he told his staff that they had only 150 days. Their success in meeting this insane deadline would change aviation forever. And it would mark the Birth of the legendary Skunk Works Lockheed was swamped with wartime manufacturing work. Their plants were churning out P38 lightnings around the clock. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it gave Kelly Johnson the opportunity to test out an idea he'd been toying with for years. He went to Robert E. Gross, the same man who bought Lockheed for $40,000 a decade earlier, and he pitched his proposal. Kelly wanted to round up a small group of talented engineers, designers and shop people, put them under one roof where they could collaborate closely and have complete authority over everything from procurement to flight testing. Gross knew better than to doubt Kelly Johnson, so he agreed and told Kelly to go pick his people. Kelly Johnson tapped about two dozen engineers and 30 mechanics for the top secret work. Now he just needed a location. He found an old circus tent near a Lockheed terminal in Burbank, California. After the team moved in, they encountered an unforeseen problem. The factory stank. The smell got so bad that one of the engineers jokingly showed up to work one day wearing a gas mask. Another engineer, Irv Culver, started saying that the smell reminded him of the Skunk Works, a moonshine distillery from the popular comic strip Little Abner that made moonshine from things like dead skunks and old shoes. One day, someone from the Navy called to see how the Messerschmitt killer was coming along. The project was top secret, so team members were warned to be careful on the phone. The call ended up being accidentally transferred to Culver's desk. In a flash of wit, he picked up the phone and answered. Skunk Works inside man Culver, the person on the other end of the line, didn't know what to say. Kelly Johnson wasn't happy about it, but. But just like a bad smell, the name hung around. It was changed to Skunk Works at the request of the Little Abner copyright holders in the 1960s. But in spirit, it stayed the same since that day in the summer of 1943, the new team had a hell of a job on their hands. They had to design an aircraft which had never been designed before. They had to deliver it in 150 days, and they couldn't ask for any outside help. The project was so secretive that you could count the number of people who knew they were designing the first true American fighter jet on your fingers. Leading them all was Kelly Johnson. It was the biggest challenge of his career. For all he knew, this could determine the outcome of World War II, and it would be the biggest triumph. On November 16, 1943, just 143 days after work began, the first prototype of the P80 appeared on the Runway at Muroc Air Force Base in California. The design centered on a clean fuselage, tapered straight tip wings and a pressurized cockpit with a bubble canopy. It was nicknamed Lulu Bell. After assembly, the new plane was put through its paces and almost immediately, disaster struck. There was a huge roar as the inlet ducts collapsed, sending debris into The British made H1 Goblin engine and cracking the impeller. The engine needed replacing, but that was much easier said than done because there were only two of them in the whole world. It took six weeks of paperwork and transport until the P80 had another one inside. Finally, on the morning of January 8, 1944, Lulu Bell was ready for her first maiden test flight. Kelly Johnson told the pilot to find out if she's a lady or a witch. At 10 o', clock, after one false start, Lulu Bell took off and put on a dazzling 20 minute display. The pilot confirmed that she was indeed a lady. So just how was America's first true fighter jet created in less than 150 days? Unquestionably, the biggest factor was Kelly Johnson. He had begun thinking about jet propulsion years before the P80 entered service. He possessed a commanding grasp of the technical details and could seemingly solve any problem. He trusted and respected his pilots. In fact, he logged 2,300 hours as a flight test engineer himself. And in skunk works, he devised a method of working on top secret projects that maximized focus and efficiency while minimizing red tape and political interference. Having Kelly on your team was like a cheat code. And now, thanks to him, the United states had the P80. It was dubbed the Shooting Star in honor of its speed and streamlined shape. It eventually reached speeds of more than 500 miles per hour. Despite early technological challenges, the Shooting Star was an amazing piece of engineering. That it was developed so quickly made it a near miracle. In the end, the Shooting Star wasn't needed in World War II. By the time it was ready, the Allies had full control of the skies and the war was almost over. But it would figure prominently in the early days of America's next conflict. After World War II, America and the Soviet Union's reluctant alliance became an all encompassing rivalry known as the Cold War. Thankfully, the two superpowers actually never faced each other directly on the battlefield. Instead, they would compete on the basis of technology, ideology, and through their proxies. The first time the US and the Soviet Union found themselves on opposing sides was in Korea. And it was there that a Shooting Star piloted by an American lieutenant colonel won history's first ever jet to jet dogfight by shooting down a MiG 15. What went through Kelly Johnson's mind when he got that news? In many ways, that moment was the culmination of his life's work. A plane he designed with his own Special projects team shot down an enemy aircraft generally regarded as best in class and gained an advantage for the United States and its allies. He was the best aircraft engineer in the world and he had helped drag Lockheed from the edge of disaster to what it considered its rightful place at the heart of the American defense establishment. But there was no time to reflect or celebrate because a new adversary presented new challenges for the United States. And the next one arrived almost right away. American intelligence had revealed that the Soviet Union had made rapid progress in developing bombers and ballistic missiles that could strike targets thousands of miles away. If the Soviets could achieve this, what else could they be doing? This vulnerability was exacerbated by the fact that the best intelligence the US Government had on the Soviet Union's facilities were photos taken by the German Luftwaffe during the war. That was 10 years ago, virtually a lifetime. The conclusion was the United States was committed to flying reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union. But they had to improve their capabilities. So the Air Force created a design competition for a reconnaissance aircraft that could fly at 70,000ft beyond the reach of Soviet fighters, missiles and radar. But surprisingly, Lockheed wasn't invited to submit a proposal. The Air Force decided to only solicit designs from smaller companies that could give this urgent project their full attention. This decision must have come as a shock to Kelly Johnson and it doesn't look any better in hindsight. The spy playing required secrecy, innovation and precision manufacturing. In other words, it was tailor made for Skunk Works. Kelly Johnson thought the same thing. So he went to Robert Gross and convinced him that Lockheed should submit a proposal and that it should be run out of Skunk Works. Kelly got to work combining his engineering skills with the lobbying skills he had honed from years of working closely with Washington. His Design, named the CL282, could operate at 60, 73,000ft and had a 1600 mile radius. To save weight and achieve the desired altitude. It stripped out all non essential components. Kelly promised delivery within eight months. But the military rejected the design. They thought the CL282 was too lightweight and that one engine wasn't enough. Curtis LeMay even walked out of one of Kelly Johnson's presentations muttering that he wasn't interested in a plane that didn't have wheels or guns. Thankfully, that's not where the conversation ended. A panel of experts advising the Air Force and CIA on the project told them that the chosen design wouldn't meet the altitude requirements. They thought Kelly Johnson's CL282 was the superior option and the CIA agreed. They were determined to win the internal battle. They even roped in President Eisenhower who agreed that responsibility for the spy plane should sit with the CIA. In the end, the CIA and Air Force came to a compromise. They would go with Kelly Johnson's CL282 design, but the project would be jointly managed by the two agencies. In March of 1955, Lockheed received a $22 million contract to deliver 20 CL 282s. The spy plane was made in the shadows. It was given the vague designation of U2 partly because the U1 and U3 already existed. Procurement of components occurred secretly. When Kelly Johnson ordered altimeters calibrated to 80,000ft from a company whose instruments usually only went up to 45,000ft. The CIA made up a cover story about experimental rockets. Shell had to invent a new type of jet fuel that wouldn't evaporate at ultra high altitude. Making it caused a nationwide shortage of a certain kind of insecticide. Yet despite these hurdles, in July, just four months after receiving the contract, Skunk Works delivered the prototype. Kelly Johnson captured the mood in his logbook entry on July 15th. Airplane essentially completed. Terrifically long hours. Everybody almost dead. The U2 couldn't be tested at a regular facility. So the CIA developed a top secret testing site right by the Groom Lake Salt Flat, better known today as Area 51. After completing the first successful test flight of the U2, legendary Lockheed test pilot Tony Levere reported that it climbed towards the heavens like a homesick angel. Kelly Johnson and his team had done it again. What's more, they did it. $3.5 million under budget and built an additional six airplanes out of spare parts. The world's first ultra high altitude aerial reconnaissance aircraft brought back the first hard data on the true extent of the Soviet Union's missile program. Photos Captured by the U2 alerted the United States that the Soviet Union was developing an unmanned satellite by the name of Sputnik, which changed the world when it launched on October 4, 1957. And it was a U2 flight over Cuba which confirmed the existence of Soviet missile launch sites. The U2's pilots called it the Dragon lady because it reminded them of a beautiful and mysterious character from a popular cartoon strip. The Dragon lady flew with almost complete impunity until Francis Gary Powers was shot down by a Soviet surface to air missile. That incident and the ripples it caused around the world taught the United States that even high altitude aircraft were suddenly vulnerable to Soviet missiles. In that way, it accelerated the development of supersonic flight technology. But it also got Kelly Johnson thinking. If the combination of high altitude and low speed was no longer the answer, what about a plane that was harder to detect and could fly both higher and faster? The answer to that question was the Lockheed A12. Codenamed Archangel by the Skunk Works team because it could climb even higher than the HomeSick angel, the A12 could fly at more than three times the speed of sound and as high as 95,000ft. Developed by the Skunk Works in just 20 months, in absolute secrecy. It was made of titanium alloy and supplemented with radar absorbing composite materials to make it harder to detect by radar. The A12 was so advanced that in the words of Kelly Johnson, everything had to be invented. Everything. For example, it was made from titanium, which could better absorb the heat generated by Mach 3 flight. But highly pure titanium had never been used in such quantities. So new forging and milling techniques had to be invented. One of the A12's most important features was its reduced radar cross section. Physicists working on a secret CIA project to reduce the visibility of American aircraft to Soviet radar, developed a theory that a continually curving airframe would be hard to harder to track. To create the distinctive cobra like shape of the A12, Kelly Johnson added thin curved extensions to the wings and fuselage. However, titanium is brittle. It doesn't bend so much as it snaps. Kelly's solution was simple and ingenious. He machined small triangular shaped titanium pieces called fillets into the required shape and then glued them onto the underlying framework. Supplies of titanium ore were another issue. Lockheed's supplier had only limited reserves, so the CIA conducted a global search for more. Using a combination of third parties and shell companies, the United States government was able to buy sufficient quantities of titanium from one of the world's leading producers, the Soviet Union. Now just think about how crazy this is. The United States is buying titanium from the Soviet Union specifically to build a spy plane to spy on the Soviet Union. And there were literally thousands of problems like this that needed to be solved. And Kelly Johnson was on top of all of them. The A12 was his greatest challenge and one of his biggest breakthroughs. So why was it only in service for one year? The answer is politics and technology. The Air Force resented that the CIA had primary operational responsibility for the A12. If there was going to be a supersonic high altitude reconnaissance plane. The Air Force's leaders decided that that they should be involved in its development and deployment. The Pentagon agreed and decided that rather than shift responsibility of the A12 over to the Air Force, they would replace it entirely because a superior design had emerged. This plane right here. The SR71 Blackbird. To create the SR71, Kelly Johnson and the Skunk Works team took the incredible foundation provided by the A12 and built on it. The first SR71 took to the skies on December 22, 1964 and entered service in January of 1966. Fundamentally, it was a more practical aircraft. Its larger size meant that it could fit a two person cockpit and a bigger fuel tank, which enhanced its ability to conduct long range missions. The SR71 also carried an extra thousand pounds of important equipment like signals intelligence, sensors, side looking radar and cameras, which enabled it to conduct reconnaissance without straying as far into enemy airspace. But this was still a Blackbird, so it could really move. The SR71 flew at over 2,000 miles per hour, four times faster than Lockheed's first fighter jet, the P80 Shooting Star. And it could scan 100,000 square miles, 80,000ft above the earth. The SR71's unique combination of practicality and performance meant that even if it was detected, it could just throw on the afterburners and outrun any missiles screaming in its direction. Still clad in heat reducing black titanium, it inspired its pilots, delighted its engineers and unnerved its enemies. With the SR71, Kelly Johnson and Skunk Works had achieved the impossible. They designed an operational aircraft that flew so high and so fast that it could neither be intercepted nor shot down. 32 years after it entered service, the Blackbird was finally retired for good in 1998. None were ever lost or damaged because of hostile action. No other jet has ever matched its performance over such a sustained length of time. Time. It was Kelly Johnson's greatest achievement. America's first true fighter jet, the world's first spy plane. And a plane that flew so high and so fast that enemies couldn't see it, let alone touch it. The three crown jewels of Lockheed's Skunk Works division, all designed by Clarence Kelly Johnson. As an aircraft engineer, he stands alone. But he had many other gifts. He was a brilliant salesman, an effective lobbyist, and such an influential manager that he is often referred to as the inventor of the KISS principle. Keep it simple, stupid. Kelly officially retired from his role at Lockheed in 1975. It wasn't his choice. He was forced by government rules, but he still found ways to make his presence felt. He served on the board of directors until 1980 and made sure he was replaced as head of Skunk Works by his protege Ben Rich. And just one year after Kelly stepped down from the board, Lockheed introduced the first ever stealth fighter, the F117 Nighthawk, a project he had led. Kelly Johnson passed away four days before Christmas 1990 in Burbank, California, the same place Skunk Works began. The SR71 Blackbird was phased out in favor of unmanned spy satellites. But Kelly Johnson's legacy wasn't just the planes he designed. It was also the Skunk Works culture and process he created. Whenever you hear about top secret development divisions like Google X, Amazon Lab126, or even the group Steve Jobs brought together to create the Macintosh computer, you should think of Skunkworks. Today, startups like Boom Supersonic and Hermeus are building the next generation of high speed aircraft. If they can harness the same spirit, ambition and positivity as the boy from Ishpeming, Michigan did, they will certainly change the world forever. Thanks for watching.