The world’s first-ever stealth aircraft, the U-2 spy plane, fastest manned aircraft ever and the first 5th-generation fighter jet .. were all created by the famous, yet highly secretive Skunk Works division of Lockheed Martin.
The Gulf War debut of the F-117 Night Hawk introduced the world to stealth technology, the SR-71 set unprecedented speed records and the U.S. Air Force F-22 is credited as the world’s first ever 5th-gen platform.
Skunk Works History
How did something so impactful and famous begin? Part of its origin can be traced to Nazi fighter jets such as the WWII plane which made up the bulk of Germany’s Luftwaffe, the Messerschmitt Bf 109.
Beginning in the early 1940s, the dangers presented by the German aircraft drove the U.S. to massively fast track its first jet-propulsion fighter jet, the XP 80.
“Take yourself back to the late 1930s and early 1940s, World War II is ongoing. All of a sudden jet propulsion in a thing, but hasn’t really deployed operationally. All of a sudden, the German’s start showing up with the Messerschmitt Bf 109 .. and the U.S. didn’t really have an immediate answer,” Renee Pasman, Integrated Systems Director, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works®, told The National Interest in an interview.
Amazing to think that Nazi Germany’s jet-propulsion fighter jet laid part of the comparative foundation for the U.S. to designate special teams of highly-expert innovators such as scientists, researchers and weapons developers. The premise of Skunk Works has, since its inception, based upon being proactive and not merely “reactive.”
“We prefer to be disruptors instead of being disrupted.” If we see a problem coming, we want to make sure that, you know, as a nation we’re prepared to respond. Skunk Works was really set up to do one thing, which was to solve a national need and do things that hadn’t been done before by pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” Pasman said.
