Kelly Johnson at the Lockheed “Skunk Works”
By Alan Smith
Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson, a true genius of high performance aircraft design.Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson was, without a doubt one of the most, if not the most prolific and ingenious aircraft designer in the worlds of both civil and military aviation. During his 50 years at Lockheed (now Lockheed-Martin) Aircraft Corporation, Johnson single-handedly designed and built ten high performance aircraft and participated in the design and building of 11 others. His own designs included the twin-engine P-38, which was the first 400 mph fighter, the XP-80, the first Air Force jet fighter, the F-104 Starfighter, and the U-2 and SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. The XP-80 was designed and built in just 143 days!
Johnson was born in 1910 in the remote Michigan upper-peninsula town of Ishpeming and later moved to Flint MI where his father owned a construction company. Thanks to a classmate in the local school, he got the nickname “Kelly.” The other kids couldn’t stand calling him Clarence and some started calling him “Clara;” his friend and classmate couldn’t stand that and started calling him Kelly. The name stuck for the rest of his life. He was 12 years old when his interest in aircraft design solidified. He finished high school, attended Flint Junior College for two years and went on the University of Michigan to get his Bachelor of Science degree in 1932.
He then went to Lockheed and applied for a job but was turned down for lack of experience. Determined to get hired there, he returned to the University and earned a Master’s in aeronautical engineering. This time, Lockheed took him on in 1933 as a tool designer at $83 per month. While at the University, Johnson had run some wind tunnel tests on a model of Lockheed’s new transport the model 10 Electra. The test model was equipped with a single vertical stabilizer and rudder and Johnson thought its directional stability was inadequate. He couldn’t convince his professor of that, but at Lockheed he did persuade then chief engineer Hal Hibbard that the airplane’s lateral stability should be improved. He suggested the twin rudder design and that proved successful. Lockheed’s management took note of that accomplishment and promoted him to aeronautical engineer. The soon to become fantastic career of Kelly Johnson was poised for launch.
The mach 3 SR-71 under construction at Lockheed Skunk Works. (Lockheed photo via Tony Landis)He became chief research engineer in 1938 after completing assignments as flight test engineer, and in stress analysis, aerodynamics and weight engineering. In 1952, he moved to Lockheed’s Burbank CA plant as chief engineer and in 1956 became vice president of research and development. In 1958, he went on to become vice president of Advanced Development Projects and the Skunk Works was born. The first ADP shop was near a stench producing plastics plant and that’s how Johnson’s people at ADP chose the name based on cartoonist Al Capp’s Li’l Abner comic strip character “Big Barnsmell” who was in charge of the Dogpatch Skonk Works. Lockheed had them change “Skonk” to “Skunk” to avoid any copyright hassle.
The Skunk Works was soon moved to a larger facility at the far end of the Burbank airport so room was available for the actual construction of prototype special aircraft. A test airbase was later built at Groom Lake in Nevada. The base later became designated Area 51. There, secret aircraft such as the Johnson designed U-2 spy plane could be put through a complete flight test program after being snuck out of Burbank,
The SE-71 Blackbird, Kelly Johnson’s last single handed design. (Lockheed photo via Tony Landis)Research and development as well as prototype construction often took place at the Skunk Works without a formal contract. A “handshake” agreement was enough to get a project started. For example, when the Air Tactical Service Command people came to Lockheed in the late spring of 1943 to see about a jet fighter, an informal agreement was worked out in a month, and work began. The ATSC was concerned about the appearance of the ME 262 jet fighter the Luftwaffe had introduced in the European sector of WWII.
The actual contract was delivered on October 16, 1943 and the XP-80 prototype was almost complete after four months of work. After flight test the airplane went into production as the P-80 Shooting Star.
Johnson’s motto at the Skunk Works was “be quick, be quiet and be on time.” He had an additional list of 14 management regulations that were simple and straightforward. He also had a 15th which was not put into print. It was “starve before you do business with the damn Navy. They don’t know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or another more exposed part of your anatomy.”
Johnson became a senior vice president in 1969 and was on the board of directors from 1964 to 1980. While he officially retired from Lockheed in 1975, he remained as consultant at the Skunk Works for several years. During his 50 years with the company he received 48 awards for his work. His last single handed project was the SR-71 Blackbird. The SR-71 was capable of reaching mach-3, the equivalent of 3100 feet per second. One made a flight from our east coast to London in less than two hours. A Russian MIG-25 pilot named Bilenko said of the SR-71, “I pursued one down the Siberian Coast and could not match its speed… I had no idea such technology existed.”
Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson died on Dec. 21, 1990 after a long illness. Reportedly, he drifted into Alzheimer’s disease late in his life. We were told that, at a birthday celebration, a fly-by of the 20 aircraft he had either designed or had led the design of was held. Johnson admired them all, but could not recall having designed them.
Nevertheless, he will always be remembered as an authentic genius in aeronautical engineering. It’s doubtful that his level of accomplishment can ever be matched. In 1974, just before his retirement, Lockheed corporate President Carl Kotchian said, “We can all be grateful that he picked Lockheed as the place to do his work and make his contribution to aviation.”
