The Log-head problem

On 15 June 1913, a seaplane called the Model G climbed off San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate and reached 300 feet. Its builders were Allan and Malcolm Loughead, two brothers whose surname was pronounced Lockheed and constantly mangled into Log-head. Malcolm changed the spelling first; Allan followed legally in 1934. By then the phonetic version was painted on some of the most famous aeroplanes in the world. Their first venture, the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company of 1912, had been funded with 4,000 dollars from a taxi firm. Malcolm, meanwhile, went off and invented the four-wheel hydraulic brake that Walter Chrysler adopted in 1924.

Bought for 40,000 dollars

The company that mattered was founded in Hollywood on 13 December 1926 by Allan Loughead, the young designer Jack Northrop, Kenneth Kay and Fred Keeler. Northrop’s Vega, a sleek wooden monocoque that first flew on 4 July 1927, became the record-breaker’s aeroplane: Amelia Earhart flew one solo across the Atlantic and Wiley Post took his Winnie Mae around the world twice. But in 1929 Keeler sold 87 percent to the Detroit Aircraft Corporation, the Depression arrived, and in 1932 Robert and Courtlandt Gross bought the wreck out of receivership for 40,000 dollars.

The war machine of Burbank

The Grosses bet on metal. The Model 10 Electra flew in 1934; a student named Kelly Johnson spotted its instability in a Michigan wind tunnel, gave it a twin tail and was hired. In 1938 the British ordered 200 Hudson patrol bombers, and Lockheed delivered the 250th seven and a half weeks early. The war did the rest. Burbank employed more than 90,000 people in 1943, and Lockheed built 19,278 aircraft in the war — about six percent of American production — including 9,000 Lightnings and 2,750 B-17s. P-38s killed Admiral Yamamoto in 1943 and carried Richard Bong to 40 victories.

A smell called Skunk Works

In June 1943, Johnson’s small team began a jet fighter next to a smelly plastics factory. An engineer, Irv Culver, answered the phone as the Skonk Works, borrowed from the Li’l Abner comic strip, and the name stuck once the spelling was changed for copyright reasons. The XP-80 was delivered 143 days later. From the same secret shop came the U-2, which accidentally took off during a taxi test in 1955, the Mach 3 SR-71 that some 800 North Vietnamese missiles never touched, and the F-117 stealth fighter. Next door, the main company built the Constellation, the C-130 Hercules and the F-104.

Bailouts and bribes

Success hid deep trouble. The C-5 Galaxy ran about a billion dollars over budget. The L-1011 TriStar was crippled when Rolls-Royce, its sole engine supplier, went into receivership in February 1971; Congress approved a 250 million dollar loan guarantee only after Vice President Spiro Agnew broke a Senate tie. Then, in 1975–1976, Senate investigators revealed that Lockheed had paid some 22 million dollars in bribes abroad. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands lost his military post, Japan’s former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was arrested, and the scandal helped produce the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Lockheed never built another airliner.

Into Lockheed Martin

Lockheed recovered as a defence giant. It moved its headquarters to Calabasas in 1986, won the Advanced Tactical Fighter contest with the YF-22 in April 1991 and bought General Dynamics’ F-16 works at Fort Worth in 1993. With 13.2 billion dollars in sales and 77,500 staff, it agreed in August 1994 to merge with Martin Marietta. On 15 March 1995 the Lockheed Corporation became half of Lockheed Martin — still the name, pronounced correctly, on the world’s most prominent fighters.

Factories

• Burbank plants · Burbank, California — Main works from 1928 until shutdown in 1994; also owned the Lockheed Air Terminal until 1978
• Skunk Works · Burbank, then Palmdale (Plant 42), California — Advanced Development Projects, founded 1943; moved to Palmdale in 1992
• Marietta plant · Marietta, Georgia — Home of the C-130 line; more than 2,300 Hercules built there by 2009
• Fort Worth plant · Fort Worth, Texas — Bought from General Dynamics in 1993 with the F-16 programme
• Calabasas headquarters · Calabasas, California — Corporate headquarters 1986–1995

People

• Allan Loughead (Lockheed) · co-founder — 1889–1969; changed his surname legally to Lockheed in 1934
• Malcolm Loughead · co-founder of Alco Hydro-Aeroplane — Founded the Lockheed Hydraulic Brake Company in 1919
• John K. “Jack” Northrop · co-founder and designer — Designed the Vega with Gerald Vultee; later founded Northrop
• Robert E. Gross · owner and chairman 1934–1956 — Bought the company from receivership with his brother in 1932
• Courtlandt S. Gross · chairman 1956–1961 — Co-purchaser in 1932
• Clarence “Kelly” Johnson · chief engineer, Skunk Works leader until 1975 — 1910–1990; led more than 40 designs including the P-38, F-104, U-2 and SR-71
• Ben Rich · Skunk Works leader from 1975 — Succeeded Johnson; oversaw the F-117
• Daniel Haughton · chairman — Resigned over the bribery scandal of the 1970s
• Daniel M. Tellep · last chairman, 1988–1995 — Negotiated the Martin Marietta merger

Records and firsts

• Constellation flew Burbank to Washington, about 2,300 miles, in 6 hours 57 minutes, 17 April 1944
• P-2 Neptune Truculent Turtle: 11,236.6 miles unrefuelled, Perth to Columbus, 1946; a piston-engine record until 1986
• F-104 world altitude record of 91,243 ft and speed record of 1,404 mph, May 1958
• SR-71 absolute altitude record in horizontal flight of 85,069 ft, July 1976; London to New York in 1 h 54 min 56 s, 1974
• KC-130F Hercules: largest aircraft to land on a carrier deck, USS Forrestal, 1963
• C-130: longest continuously produced military aircraft, 70 years in 2024
• JetStar: first dedicated business jet to enter service, 1961