The Original Skunk Works

on YouTube ↗53m

" summary

Stories focus on concrete choices and outcomes: a prototype P-80 is assembled in 143 days using on-the-spot fabrication and minimal drawings; the U-2 hits ~74,500 ft with bicycle landing gear and chase-car landings; the A-12/SR-71 uses a titanium airframe plus J58 propulsion to cruise above 90,000 ft at ~Mach 3.2 while tolerating fuel leaks and oil drip; engine starts use triethyl borane and a Buick V8 start cart; the F-117 emerges from radar math validated by ball‑bearing tests and actually works in combat.

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" chapters (19)

1. 0:00Start
2. 1:06Air Force Thunderbirds
3. 1:31Sr-71 Blackbird
4. 6:37The P-38 Lightning
5. 8:53Where To Work
6. 15:32F-104 Starfighter
7. 16:11The U2
8. 17:13Why the Nevada Desert
9. 23:16Lockheed A12
10. 27:04Engine Nozzles
11. 28:05Propulsion
12. 31:19Ag 330 Start Cart
13. 43:57And So They Took the Code That the F-16 Used for Pitch Correction and Used It on all Three Axes of Flight because of that the Early Test Pilots Nicknamed this Thing the Wobbling Goblin because It Took Them a While To Get It Dialed in and It Would Literally Wobbly as You Flew It as It Made Not Quite So Correct Corrections but True To Form They Got It To Fly this Is Actually the Only Photo I'Ve Been Able To Find of this Thing in the Air because Most of the Test Flights Were Done at Night
14. 45:51The Reason this Plane Is all Flat Surfaces Is because Computers in that Day Were Not Strong Enough To Calculate the Radar Observability of a Curved Surface So Instead of Overthinking It Then Assault over Holes Are Just Designed To Point Out a Flat Surfaces and Call It a Day Kelly Johnson Was Fond of Saying that Beautiful Planes Fly Beautifully this Plane with all of Its Flat Surfaces and Weird Tail and Strange Diamond Shape Is Certainly Not Beautiful in the Conventional Sense of the Word but Didn't Matter It Did What It Needed To Do So How in the World Did They Do It
15. 48:26Team Are Constantly Making Decisions as They Assess Problems and as They Write Code You Can either Trust Your Team To Make Good Decisions or You Can Try To Smother Them with Process and Micromanagement Try To Have a Hand in every Decision That They Make but Good Leaders Hire Smart People and Trust Them To Make Good Decisions on Code that Trust Can't Be Hands-Off Right Good Leaders Also Have To Focus on Enabling Their Team To Make Good Decisions by Making Sure They Have Good Context and Understand the Overall Goals of both Their Work and the Business as a Whole Your Team's Going To Be Making Decisions
16. 50:19And this Is What Kelly Got So Right There's no Way all of this Innovation Could Have Come out of the Brain of One Man Kelly Didn't Have all of that in His Head No Matter How Smart He Was but the Processes He Put in Place Allowed His Teams To Set the Right Priorities and To Make the Right Compromises When They Made Decisions One of My Favorite Rules There Shall Be but One Object To Get a Good Airplane Built on Time What Made a Good Airplane Delivered the Value That the Customer Needed It Hit the Key Specs and It Compromised on the Things That Weren't So Essential in Order To Do So Kelly Was a Pragmatist
17. 50:51And It Compromised on the Things That Weren't So Essential in Order To Do So Kelly Was a Pragmatist every Decision He Made Was around How Deliver the Most Value in the Shortest Amount of Time for His Customer while Bringing Out the Best in His People and because of the Freedom and Trust He Gave His Teams and because of How Clearly He Laid Out the Goals for each Project They Were Able To Deliver some of the Most Amazing Planes Ever Built the U2 Landed on Terrible Landing Gear because They Came the Team Decided It Was Worth It To Save the Weight in Favor of Altitude
18. 51:33The Team Spent all of Their Time Trying To Figure Out How To Build a Plane out of Titanium and Then Get It To Go Mach 3 at 90 Thousand Feet and I Didn't Sweat the Rest of the Stuff the F-117 Violates Almost every Law of Aerodynamic Design but They Worked around that To Make It Invisible on Radar It Bucks Conventional Wisdom in Almost every Way Possible because of the Trust That Been Read Put and Dennis Overholser Kelly's and Later Ben's Teams Had Unprecedented Input into What They Were Building
19. 51:47Design but They Worked around that To Make It Invisible on Radar It Bucks Conventional Wisdom in Almost every Way Possible because of the Trust That Been Read Put and Dennis Overholser Kelly's and Later Ben's Teams Had Unprecedented Input into What They Were Building They Had Incredible Freedom and Trust from Their Leaders You GotTa Find Ways To Give Your Team that Trust and that Freedom You Have To Push As Many Decisions and as Much Responsibilities Down to Them as You Can because They Have the Information They'Re Going To Make Better Decisions than You Almost every Time As Long as You'Ve Done Your Job of Giving Them the Larger Business Context You Got To Make Sure that You'Ve Identified and Are Clearly and Consistently Communicating that Business Context the Two or Three Most Important Things That Your Team Needs To Be Working on

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