Skunk Works

I left the Pentagon thinking we had a deal, but the study General Jones ordered took months to wend its way through the blue-suit bureaucracy, and we didn’t sign the contract for two more years. Updating our old airplanes would help to keep our corporate accountants at bay for a while. With the TR-1, I was merely buying time. To survive, the Skunk Works needed substantial new projects involving revolutionary new technology that our customer could not wait to get his hands on. Tightrope walking on the cutting edge was our stock-in-trade.

“Don’t try to ape me,” Kelly had advised me. “Don’t try to take credit for the airplanes I built. Go build your own. And don’t build an airplane you don’t really believe in. Don’t prostitute yourself or the reputation of the Skunk Works. Do what’s right by sticking to your convictions and you’ll do okay.”

As it happened, I was damned lucky. Stealth technology landed in my lap—a gift from the gods assigned to take care of beleaguered executives, I guess. I take credit for immediately recognizing the value of the gift I was handed before it became apparent to everyone else, and for taking major risks in expending development costs before we had any real government interest or commitment. The result was that we produced the most significant advance in military aviation since jet engines, while rendering null and void the enormous 300-billion-ruble investment the Soviets had made in missile and radar defenses over the years. No matter how potent their missiles or powerful their radar, they could not shoot down what they could not see. The only limits on a stealth attack airplane were its own fuel capacity and range. Otherwise, the means to counter stealth were beyond current technology, demanding unreasonably costly funding and the creation of new generations of supercomputers at least twenty-five years off. I felt certain that stealth airplanes would rule the skies for the remainder of my lifetime. And I came from a family of long livers.

The stealth story actually began in July 1975, about six months after I took over the Skunk Works. I attended one of those periodic secret Pentagon briefings held to update those with a need to know on the latest Soviet technical advances in weapons and electronics. The U.S. had only two defensive ground-to-air missile systems deployed to protect bases—the Patriot and the Hawk, both only so-so in comparison to the Soviet weapons.

By contrast, the Russians deployed fifteen different missile systems to defend their cities and vital strategic interests. Those of us in the business of furnishing attack systems had to be updated on the latest defensive threat. Then we would go back to the drawing board to find new ways to defeat those defenses, while the other side was equally busy devising fresh obstacles to our plans. It was point counterpoint, played without end. Their early-warning radar systems, with 200-foot-long antennas, could pick up an intruding aircraft from hundreds of miles away. Those long-range systems couldn’t tell altitude or the type of airplane invading their airspace, but passed along the intruder to systems that could.

Their SAM ground-to-air missile batteries were able to engage both low-flying attack fighters and cruise missiles at the same time. Their fighters were armed with warning radars and air-to-air missiles capable of distinguishing between low-flying aircraft and ground clutter with disarming effectiveness. The Soviet SAM-5, a defensive surface-to-air missile of tremendous thrust, could reach heights of 125,000 feet and could be tipped with small nuclear warheads. At that height, the Soviets didn’t worry about impacting the ground below with the heat or shock wave from a very small megaton atomic blast and estimated that upper stratospheric winds would carry the radiation fallout over Finland or Sweden. An atomic explosion by an air defense missile could bring down any high-flying enemy bomber within a vicinity of probably a hundred miles with its shock wave and explosive power. Our Air Force crews undertaking reconnaissance intelligence-gathering missions over territory protected by SAM-5 sites all wore special glasses that would keep them from going blind from atomic flash. So these weapons system advances posed a damned serious threat.