Kelly (24 page)

Attempts to apply Skunk Works techniques, however, have not always met with success. One example was the U.S. Army’s Cheyenne rigid-rotor helicopter program.

The Army became interested in the Skunk Works approach because it promised quicker deliveries, greater flexibility, and lower costs than a conventional operation.

In preparation, I took Jack Real, a very able engineer and manager who was to be in charge of the program for Lockheed, plus six of his top supervisors, into the Skunk Works for six months’ study of our operation.

At Van Nuys Airport, they had at their disposal a large hangar, well-lighted drafting rooms, and anything else they might need. I imposed on Real the requirement that he try to design the helicopter so that it could be serviced with six simple tools—any six of his choice. This was more a challenge than an arbitrary decision. I think most good designers want to keep things simple, but sometimes, for the sheer engineering delight of creating, things become unnecessarily complex and cumbersome.

The rigid rotor concept, pioneered by Lockheed’s Irv Culver and Frank Johnson, was much simpler and safer than conventionally designed helicopter propulsion systems and had been proven successful on smaller-scale flying machines. The Cheyenne AH-56A would be its first application to a large military vehicle. The Cheyenne was designed for high performance, maneuverability, evasive operation, and was to be ideal for nap-of-the-earth flying.

Real and his team began with great enthusiasm to apply our operating methods to meet the Army’s design specifications. But within six months, the satellite Skunk Works had a purchasing department larger than my entire engineering department working on seven projects. They had become buried in the usual paperwork already.

Despite the best of intentions, the Army had at the time ten different test centers and bases involved in the procurement of new weapon systems. And when you have that many representatives involved in design and development, with no single person in charge to represent the customer, the Skunk Works concept cannot work.

It is absolutely imperative that the customer have a small, highly-concentrated project office as a counterpart to the Skunk Works manager and his team. It is not a concept easily adopted after years of working within the system. There has to be an all-out commitment, or the method will not work.

The Cheyenne program was cancelled, I think unwisely, when it encountered a rotor problem. We lost a test vehicle when a rotor shed its parts. We were able to determine the cause—it was in the whirl mode—and knew how to fix it. But the Army decided to cancel the program and start from scratch.

For the money later spent in development of a helicopter with lesser capabilities, the service could have had some 450 Cheyennes. At the time the Cheyenne contract was cancelled, 145 Army personnel were involved in the program. In contrast, the total at the Skunk Works for both CIA and Air Force representatives in our U-2 and SR-71 programs did not exceed six people.

I am convinced of the military’s intention to improve weapon systems development through faster and cheaper means. Taking on a major new project requires bold decisions. It is extremely difficult to predict technology problems five to ten years ahead and commit to solutions.

The Army did decide again to work by Skunk Works rules, and this time they made it work. In initial planning for development of the Division Air Defense gun and radar, I was asked for and gave a personal briefing, extended to about six companies competing as suppliers for the project. Representatives from the companies spent several days at the Skunk Works. They had been informed by the Army that they were to prepare their bids for a project of potentially several billion dollars on the basis of our “14 Points.”

The basic operating rules of the Skunk Works are:

My early definition of the Skunk Works holds true today:

“The Skunk Works is a concentration of a few good people solving problems far in advance—and at a fraction of the cost—of other groups in the aircraft industry by applying the simplest, most straightforward methods possible to develop and produce new projects. All it is really is the application of common sense to some pretty tough problems.”

My promise then to Skunk Works employees still applies now:

“I owe you a challenging, worthwhile job, providing stable employment, fair pay, a chance to advance, and an opportunity to contribute to our nation’s first line of defense. I owe you good management and sound projects to work on, good equipment to work with and good work areas.…”

Our employees could tell, I think, that I really believed in the Skunk Works and in them. The bottom line is integrity, and I’ve never built a plane in which I did not believe. Examples: The liquid-hydrogen design already mentioned; a nuclear-powered plane in the ’50s; and an experimental vertical-rising aircraft, the XFV-1, which we advised the Navy was so underpowered with the engines available at the time, in the ’50s, that
it was dangerous. The Navy agreed to abandon the development effort.

The vertical ascent XFV-1, an unsuccessful design concept. It was characteristic of Kelly Johnson to write off aircraft developments he came to view as impractical—regardless of the financial and manhour loss of initial investment
.

Three times I was offered a company presidency at Lockheed and three times declined it. To me, there was no better job within the corporation than head of Advanced Development Projects—the Skunk Works. I was doing what I’d wanted to do since I was 12 years old.

B
EFORE ALTHEA DIED, SHE URGED ME TO REMARRY
. She did not want me to be lonely. I endured it for awhile—fortunately this was a period of demanding work for me—but I knew I could not continue to live that way. Much as I love my work and always have—perhaps more than most people—I also believe life should be shared to be really meaningful and be balanced with the pure pleasure of recreation.

My secretary at the time was a pretty, petite redhead. She had worked for me for ten years, the last two actually as an administrative assistant. She not only was beautiful but well educated and talented, a former ballet student. She became more and more important to me personally; and in May of 1971 I married Maryellen Elberta Meade in the little Lutheran church at Solvang, near the ranch. We honeymooned in Hawaii.

Once again I was happy in my personal life as well as in my profession. I knew that Maryellen was, too. She was my “Sweetheart.” But not for long, about a year and a half.

In the brief, happy period we enjoyed, Maryellen came to love Star Lane as I did. We rode horseback together over the ranch whenever we could. She took up golf, too, playing at Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake, where I have been a member for many years. As a relative beginner, she teamed frequently with another player of comparable handicap, Nancy Powers Horrigan.

But the diabetes that had been diagnosed in Maryellen
some years earlier but held under control became more serious. The first serious effect was to her eyesight. We tried everything. She underwent hundreds of laser treatments to reduce the blood spots on her retina, but the treatments were only slightly successful.

An operation developed at Stanford University offered hope. She submitted to the procedure twice, the second time knowing that the entire eyeball might have to be removed. She was determined to take every chance to retain some sight. The operations caused her great pain and anguish and unfortunately were unsuccessful. The continuing loss of sight was gradual. At one point, she used a television-screen-size magnifier to read. Eventually, she lost sight in both eyes.

Maryellen began to experience kidney failure and was on dialysis for more than a year before she began to explore the possibility of a kidney transplant. Tests showed that her sister Irene’s kidney would prove a compatible exchange, and the operation was performed. It required repeated treatments over several years to forestall a threatened rejection, but finally the transplant became fairly well established and no longer showed signs of failure. In this same period, she had another operation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Her sister donated a part of her pancreas, but within two weeks it was rejected.

In 1975, I took partial retirement. I needed to take Maryellen to numerous doctors’ appointments and hospital visits. During one period, we were seeing from three to seven doctors each week.

During her stay at Mayo, an infection was discovered in the big toe of her right foot—an extremely dangerous condition for a diabetic because of the likelihood of gangrene. It wasn’t many months after her return to California that the toe had to be amputated, then her right leg below the knee. She was fitted with an artificial limb, learned to adapt to it, and got around with the aid of a cane. In one year, she had five major operations.

With the loss of her sight, Maryellen lost her ability to
balance, so her movement was restricted to a wheelchair.

Throughout this long ordeal, she was unfailingly courageous. She was very much aware of what I had been through with Althea’s illness and did not want to cause such an experience again. Her frequent companion—and a great help to me as well when business interferred with my taking Maryellen to doctors’ appointments—was Nancy. But I was with “Sweetheart” through all her major surgery.

Her health began to fail in other ways. She developed angina. Her strength was ebbing, and her weight slipped to 89 from 117 pounds.

Several times I had to rush her to the hospital when she passed out from incorrect doses of insulin. There was no stability to her condition, and it was difficult to establish just how much insulin to administer. I bought an electronic device with which I could measure her blood sugar for the injections I gave her several times a day. Dr. Howard Rosenfeld of Valley Presbyterian Hospital worked with us faithfully throughout this period.

For most of the ten years of our marriage, it was one long disheartening struggle against a siege of failing health. I did not escape untouched, myself. There had been the operation in 1970 to remove half of my stomach—and with it the recurring ulcer problem. Later, there was also the uncomfortable and not uncomplicated necessity to remove a piece of bamboo I’d accidentally driven into my lower colon. And I required a triple-bypass heart operation. In my case, the operations were successful, and my health was restored.