The Impossible Factory summary

Kelly wasted little time laying down roots. He bought a house and married Althea Young, a confident and independent young woman who also worked at Lockheed. And just as he arrived, Lockheed was becoming a vibrant hub for aviation pioneers and record breakers like Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart, and Howard Hughes. Kelly helped to refine aircrafts for all of them, bolstering his reputation as the guy who could solve problems that no one had encountered before.

But the millionaire mogul Howard Huges had a more influential impact on Lockheed's future than the others. With his seemingly unlimited resources, he challenged the company to build a revolutionary airliner for his latest asset, TWA airlines. As a result, Kelly and his colleagues created the Lockheed Constellation. Fast, pressurized, and technologically advanced, it was a major step forward for commercial aviation. The project reinforced Kelly's belief that ambitious goals often produced the greatest breakthroughs.

One of the things Kelly Johnson is best known for is the Skunk Works, which was essentially an independent outfit within Lockheed that operated entirely by Kelly’s rules. Independent because these were often military projects that required a high level of secrecy. But that independence also provided what Kelly really valued, which was speed, efficiency, and being able to turn a project around, from concept to prototype, faster than anyone else. 

The ground rules and process by which Skunk Works would operate were forged during the early years of World War II, but the name and official status within Lockheed finally arrived in the summer of 1943, when Kelly and his team began work on another project that would revolutionize the industry – America’s first jet fighter.

Even though the Cold War was more of a battle for information than for military strength, the Skunk Works team used this new brand of warfare to come up with one of their greatest success stories: the U-2 spy plane. 

The problem that needed fixing was an imbalance in information. The US was an open nation that the Soviets had little problem spying upon. But the US had little knowledge of what exactly was happening behind the Iron Curtain. It was known that the USSR had a growing nuclear arsenal, but the size of bomber fleets, missile programs, and the feasibility of a surprise nuclear attack were all open questions. Kelly Johnson believed he had the answer – an entirely new kind of airplane – one designed to see what no one else could.

When Francis Gary Powers' U-2 was downed by Soviet missiles in 1960 it was clear that the Soviets had caught up. If the US wanted to continue flying deep inside hostile territory, they’d need to do more than go high. Kelly's answer was Project OXCART. Continuing to work with the CIA, the project set out to create a reconnaissance aircraft that would go faster than Mach 3, soar near the edge of space, and outrun virtually any threat. Its first version, the A-12, would set the standard of the legendary Blackbird series of reconnaissance aircraft.

Once again, it was about figuring out how to defy the impossible in almost every area of engineering. To begin with, there’s the material. The atmospheric friction that occurs at Mach 3 made conventional aluminum unusable. Their search for a viable replacement eventually led them to titanium. Ironically enough, sourcing enough titanium required setting up shell companies that allowed them to purchase most of it from the Soviet Union. 

The 1970s proved to be a frustrating time for Kelly and the Skunk Works operation as their relationship with the increasingly bureaucratic military brass began to sour. A lot of Kelly’s ire was pointed at Robert McNamara, whose leadership at the Pentagon coincided with a pivot away from airplanes to an emphasis on missile systems. But also, McNamara did not hide his distaste with the special treatment with which Kelly and Skunk Works were granted. In quick fashion, the Pentagon rejected Kelly’s bid for a new interceptor and they ordered the destruction of the specialized tools used to manufacture the Blackbird family, ensuring the aircraft would never be built again.

Kelly never stopped pitching ideas though. One of his last projects involved a new generation of lightweight fighters built around simplicity, affordability, and rapid development. Although Lockheed lost the competition, many of the ideas Kelly championed later appeared in the F-16. Until the end, he was always a step ahead.