#136.
This is the story of origin of X:
When Germany’s first jet fighter planes appeared in the skies over Europe in 1943, the U.S.War Department hired Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to build a working jet fighter prototype,
giving them just 180 days to do so. For The War Department, there was just one man for the
job: 33-year old Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, Lockheed’s talented but eccentric Chief Engineer. Kelly
Johnson ran Lockheed’s innovative Advanced Develop Programs for nearly 45 years, from its
inception in 1943 to 1975. Lockheed was out of floor space, as the entire complex was devoted for 24/7 production of the current planes. The jet fighter project was to be conducted with top secrecy, so Kelly decided to leverage the space constraint. He broke away from the Lockheed main operation, taking 23 of the best design engineers and 30 mechanics with him, and set up camp in a rented circus tent next to a foul-smelling plastics factory, figuring the odor would help keep nosy barkers away. A team engineer named Irv Culver was a fan of Al Capp's newspaper comic strip, "Li'l Abner," in which there was a running joke about a mysterious and malodorous place deep in the forest called the "Skonk Works." For legal reasons, Lockheed eventually trademarked the name “X” for their top-secret advanced development program.
ID X.
This is the story of origin of X:
When Germany’s first jet fighter planes appeared in the skies over Europe in 1943, the U.S.War Department hired Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to build a working jet fighter prototype,
giving them just 180 days to do so. For The War Department, there was just one man for the
job: 33-year old Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, Lockheed’s talented but eccentric Chief Engineer. Kelly
Johnson ran Lockheed’s innovative Advanced Develop Programs for nearly 45 years, from its
inception in 1943 to 1975. Lockheed was out of floor space, as the entire complex was devoted for 24/7 production of the current planes. The jet fighter project was to be conducted with top secrecy, so Kelly decided to leverage the space constraint. He broke away from the Lockheed main operation, taking 23 of the best design engineers and 30 mechanics with him, and set up camp in a rented circus tent next to a foul-smelling plastics factory, figuring the odor would help keep nosy barkers away. A team engineer named Irv Culver was a fan of Al Capp's newspaper comic strip, "Li'l Abner," in which there was a running joke about a mysterious and malodorous place deep in the forest called the "Skonk Works." For legal reasons, Lockheed eventually trademarked the name “X” for their top-secret advanced development program.
ID X.
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