Skunk Works

I will leave it to historians to debate the effects of our own astronomical defense spending, particularly during the Reagan administration, on the demise of the Soviet Union. Did we really spend them into self-destruction, or did their own corruption and an almost nonexistent functioning economy do the job irrespective of military outlays? Or is the truth somewhere in between? There is no doubt that we ran up enormous debts ourselves that have almost wrecked our own free enterprise system by chasing after enormously costly technologies that were simply beyond our creative grasp. The Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative is a case in point. This was the so-called Star Wars concept of employing an impenetrable defensive shield capable of destroying all incoming enemy missiles launched against us. In an actual all-out nuclear attack, hundreds of missiles would be raining down on us, including many decoys. SDI would instantly acquire them all, distinguish between real and decoys, and save our bacon by knocking out all those nuclear warheads at heights and ranges sufficiently far removed from our own real estate. Some of us thought that SDI stood for Snare and Deception with Imagination, even though it was supposedly the brainchild of Dr. Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, who sold the concept to President Reagan. The trouble was that the technologies to make this system function as advertised were not even on the horizon and would ultimately cost trillions of dollars to develop over many, many years. The administration allocated about $5 billion annually in R&D, which did result in some advances in laser and missile research.

Its apologists justify these costs with the claim that the Russians really believed in the seriousness of the administration’s intent and were panicked into disastrous spending to try to overcome SDL If so, we spent a hell of a lot of money in deception and very little in behalf of worthwhile technology. And that will always be the result unless the new technology we are attempting to create is really within practical reach of our current abilities and achievable with reasonable expenditures.

Lockheed’s Skunk Works has been a dazzling example of American aerospace at its best, setting the standards for the entire U.S. industry in developing aircraft decades ahead of any others in performance and capability. Fifty years is a long time for a very small development company to stay in business, much less to maintain its unusual competence and morale. But if we are to survive a future every bit as uncertain and turbulent as the past, we will need many more skilled risk-takers like the ones first brought together on the initial Skunk Works project during World War II, to build the first U.S. jet fighter.

We became the most successful advanced projects company in the world by hiring talented people, paying them top dollar, and motivating them into believing that they could produce a Mach 3 airplane like the Blackbird a generation or two ahead of anybody else. Our design engineers had the keen experience to conceive the whole airplane in their mind’s-eye, doing the trade-offs in their heads between aerodynamic needs and weapons requirements. We created a practical and open work environment for engineers and shop workers, forcing the guys behind the drawing boards onto the shop floor to see how their ideas were being translated into actual parts and to make any necessary changes on the spot. We made every shop worker who designed or handled a part responsible for quality control. Any worker—not just a supervisor or a manager—could send back a part that didn’t meet his or her standards. That way we reduced rework and scrap waste.

We encouraged our people to work imaginatively, to improvise and try unconventional approaches to problem solving, and then got out of their way. By applying the most commonsense methods to develop new technologies, we saved tremendous amounts of time and money, while operating in an atmosphere of trust and cooperation both with our government customers and between our white-collar and blue-collar employees. In the end, Lockheed’s Skunk Works demonstrated the awesome capabilities of American inventiveness when free to operate under near ideal working conditions. That may be our most enduring legacy as well as our source of lasting pride.

A successful Skunk Works will always demand a strong leader and a work environment dominated by highly motivated employees. Given those two key ingredients, the Skunk Works will endure and remain unrivaled for advancing future technology. Of that, I am certain, even in the face of dramatic downsizing of our military-industrial complex. Prudence demands that the country retain a national capability to design and develop both new technologies and weapons systems to meet threats as they arise, especially better and improved surveillance of unstable, hostile regimes.