The Creator of the Skunk Works!

Dean, Josh.  The Impossible Factory: The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the 

        Lockheed Skunk Works, America's Innovation Machine.  New York: Dutton, 2026.  

        ISBN: 9781524745516 

 

So how much do you know of aviation history?  Can you name any American airplanes form the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, or any recent ones?  Have you heard of "The Skunk Works" and do you know where the term originated?  Even if you can name the airplane, can you name the aircraft designer?  If any of this catches your eye, pick up and read Josh Dean's The Impossible Factory which tells the story of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, a poor boy from Michigan who fulfilled his dream of creating and building iconic airplanes!

Kelly Johnson was an iconic airplane engineer who graduated from the University of Michigan and moved out to California to work for Lockeed in 1933 and helped launch the Lockheed Electra.  During this time Kelly Johnson helped build planes for Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, Wiley Post, and Amelia Earhart.  He also worked with Howard Hughes to build the Constellation passenger plane for TWA which was used as the C-69 by the Army Air Corp during WWII.  Then England came calling and Kelly Johnson sold them the Hudson anti-sub/bomber plane which he redesigned over a weekend. This achievement was followed by the P-38 Lightning - a twin-engine design that was a radical departure from current aircraft, but was a great fighter plane that made history, especially in the Pacific campaigns.  And the Skunk Works was born when Kelly Johnson got the go-ahead to create the first American jet fighter in  June 1943 and the prototype flew in January 1944 as Lulu Belle (aka P-80 Shooting Star).  In 1953, Kelly Johnson and Lockheed built the F-104 Starfighter for the US Air Force.  Then in 1954, Lockheed and Kelly Johnson got involved in creating spy planes.  They did the U-2, then in 1961, the A-12 Blackbird which morphed into the SR-71.  The final project that Kelly Johnson was involved with at Lockheed was another secret project - the F-117  - a design he did not like it could fly but worked due to its mathematically created shape.  Josh Dean includes the interesting details that bring the stories he tells to life.

 

In The Impossible Factory, Josh Dean provides a look into aviation design history embodied in one man, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson who helped shape some of the most iconic aircraft for the United States and Lockheed!  Read and enjoy!