Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed

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Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed

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In the ‘80s, IBM ran a skunk works project that resulted in the adaptation of personal computers to business needs and the release of the IBM PC, marking the start of IBM’s personal computer division; This memoir chronicles the development of “stealth technology” and the F-117A. The result played out years later in Iraq: During his time as President, Eisenhower was scoffed and resented by management in the aerospace industry because he moved slowly, cautiously, and was conservative on military spending; Part of the Skunk Works secret to success is getting big corporations to work small and communicate more effectively.

After their first success, they applied the Skunk Works method again to create the world’s first spy plane in 1954 that could take crystal clear pictures at 70,000 feet. One of the glass cases features an unassuming briefcase. It’s the one Johnson used when visiting CIA headquarters to show an early model of what became the A-12, a predecessor of the SR-71. The increasing layers of bureaucracy over his career added crazy paper, lots of oversight and huge numbers of people to the staff.Whenever a business needs to do something bold, “going Skunk” is a great way to get innovation done. Callan speculated in a note to investors that although the loss was “not large,” it may have still led to Possenriede’s resignation if he or his team missed warnings of the project’s troubles. Rich’s concluding chapter, “Drawing the Right Conclusions” outlines his own ideas for more sensible procurement policies throughout the defense industry. He anticipates the widespread use of drones. I don’t know enough to determine whether any of his idea have been adopted, but they make sense if one wants both to control costs, and maintain a technological edge in weaponry. Isolation also encourages risk-taking and rapid experimentation. No idea is too wild to try. That’s the attitude that leads to bigger and better things. These rewards go above someone’s basic survival needs to impact a deep emotional desire to live a purpose-filled, self-directed life.

This classic history of America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies is "a gripping technothriller in which the technology is real" ( New York Times Book Review). Google’s skunk works division brought to life the space elevators, the robotics projects, and the self-driving car; Digital engineering is the big new trend in weapons development. The move sets up Skunk Works to create aircraft at a low price by owning a project from birth into adulthood, Babione said. Designate a leader and provide them with full control of the project, in all aspects. “He/she must only report to a division president or higher.” This move is only possible if there is trust. Without trust in the leader and his/her team, people outside the project, including the customer, will intervene in a counter-productive manner. #2 Viciously minimize the team

🍪 Privacy & Transparency

Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel supervised. Military aircraft were so expensive and complex and represented such a sizable investment of taxpayers’ money that no manufacturer expected to win a contract without first jumping through an endless series of procurement hoops, culminating in the flight-testing phase, that under normal circumstances stretched nearly ten or more years. From start to finish, a new airplane could take as long as twelve years before taking its place in the inventory and become operational on a flight line long after it was already obsolete. But that was how the bureaucracy did business." Each member of Johnson’s team was cautioned that design and production of the new XP-80 fighter jet must be carried out in strict secrecy. No one was to discuss the project outside the small organization, and team members were warned to be careful of how they answered the phones. The result? They built a laser-fast fighter jet in only 143 days (7 days ahead of schedule). It was called the P-80 Shooting Star and it won history’s first jet-versus-jet dogfight in 1950.



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