page_title: Kelly Johnson (engineer)
section_title: Lockheed career
hierarchical_section_title: Kelly Johnson (engineer) / Lockheed career
caption_attribution_description: Kelly-Johnson Electra
context_page_description: Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson was an American aeronautical and systems engineer. He is recognized for his contributions to a series of important aircraft designs, most notably the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird. Besides the first production aircraft to exceed Mach 3, he also produced the first fighter capable of Mach 2, the United States' first operational jet fighter, as well as the first fighter to exceed 400 mph, and many other contributions to various aircraft. As a member and first team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works, Johnson worked for more than four decades and is said to have been an "organizing genius". He played a leading role in the design of over forty aircraft, including several honored with the prestigious Collier Trophy, acquiring a reputation as one of the most talented and prolific aircraft design engineers in the history of aviation. In 2003, as part of its commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight, Aviation Week & Space Technology ranked Johnson eighth on its list of the top 100 "most important, most interesting, and most influential people" in the first century of aerospace.
context_section_description: At the University of Michigan, Johnson conducted wind tunnel tests of Lockheed's proposed Model 10 airliner. He found the aircraft did not have adequate directional stability, but his professor felt it did and told Lockheed so. Upon completing his master's degree in 1933, Johnson joined Lockheed as a tool designer on a salary of $83 a month. Shortly after starting, Johnson convinced Hall Hibbard, the chief engineer, the Model 10 was unstable. Hibbard sent Johnson back to Michigan to conduct more tests. Johnson eventually made multiple changes to the wind tunnel model, including adding an "H" tail, to address the problem. Lockheed accepted Johnson's suggestions and the Model 10 went on to be a success. This brought Johnson to the attention of company management, and he was promoted to aeronautical engineer.
  After assignments as flight test engineer, stress analyst, aerodynamicist, and weight engineer, he became chief research engineer in 1938. In 1952, he was appointed chief engineer of Lockheed's Burbank, California plant, which later became the Lockheed-California Company. In 1956 he became Vice President of Research and Development there.
  Johnson became Vice President of Advanced Development Projects (ADP) in 1958. The first ADP offices were nearly uninhabitable; the stench from a nearby plastic factory was so vile that Irv Culver, one of the engineers, began answering the intra-Lockheed "house" phone "Skonk Works!" In Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner, Big Barnsmell's Skonk Works — spelled with an "o" — was where Kickapoo Joy Juice was brewed. When the name leaked out, Lockheed ordered it changed to "Skunk Works" to avoid potential legal trouble over use of a copyrighted term. The term rapidly circulated throughout the aerospace community, and became a common nickname for research and development offices; however, reference to "The Skunk Works" means the Lockheed ADP department. Here, the F-104 Starfighter and the secret reconnaissance planes U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird were developed.
  Johnson led or contributed to the development of a number of aircraft. A few examples illustrate the influence of his work. In the late 1930s, Johnson helped lead the team that developed the P-38 Lightning. Eventually, almost 10,000 of these fighters were built. They played a significant role in World War II. In 1943, responding to  United States Army Air Forces' concerns about Nazi Germany's development of high performance jet fighters, Johnson proposed to develop a jet airplane in six months. The result, the P-80 Shooting Star, was completed on time and became America's first operational jet fighter. The need to find space to develop the P-80 also led to the creation of the facility that would later be called the Skunk Works. Johnson also led the development of the SR-71 Blackbird family of aircraft. Through a number of significant innovations, Johnson's team was able to create an aircraft that flew so high and fast that it could neither be intercepted nor shot down. No other jet airplane has matched the Blackbird's performance.
  Johnson also helped to design the Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher a decade before the famous SR-71. The Kingfisher was a highly successful single-engine Mach 4.3-capable ramjet aircraft composed mainly of steel, which was used to test American air defenses against nuclear missiles. The information and experience Johnson gained was later used to produce the A-12 spy plane for the Central Intelligence Agency. Johnson then used the combined knowledge of the Kingfisher and A-12 to produce the SR-71 Blackbird.
  In 1955, at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency, Johnson initiated construction of the airbase at Groom Lake, Nevada, later known as Area 51. This project provided a secret location for flight testing the Lockheed U-2.
  He served on Lockheed's board of directors from 1964 to 1980, becoming a senior vice president in 1969. He officially retired from Lockheed in 1975 and was succeeded by Ben Rich, but continued as a consultant at the Skunk Works. In June 1983, the Lockheed Rye Canyon Research and Development Ce
caption: Kelly Johnson participated in the design of the Lockheed Model 10 Electra, testing a model with a single vertical stabilizer in the wind tunnel of the University of Michigan.
exif: {}