After their first success, they applied the Skunk Works method again to create the world’s first spy plane in 1954 that could take crystal clear pictures at 70,000 feet. get. Considered by many insiders to be the definitive history of the Skunkworks, Miller's book covers everything - from the XP-80 up to the F-22 - Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn't have to keep running to the bank to support government projects. With a high degree of autonomy, access to funds and exceptional freedom from the bureaucracy and the management constraints of the parent organizations, skunk works teams can truly attempt what has never been done and speed up innovation at an incredible rate. The Skunks’ Den is the only unclassified room at headquarters. The modern space looks like any ordinary conference room. There’s a large conference table and extra seating. But this is also stuffed with some 60 toaster-sized models on display stands lining the walls encased in glass.

But it wasn’t the time they put in that mattered. It was the way they worked that made them exceptional. An engineer named Irv Culver was a fan of Al Capp's newspaper comic strip, "Li'l Abner." In the comic, there was a running joke about a mysterious and malodorous place deep in the forest called the "Skonk Works," where a strong beverage was brewed from skunks, old shoes and other strange ingredients. Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel supervised. These rewards go above someone’s basic survival needs to impact a deep emotional desire to live a purpose-filled, self-directed life. Two brief criticisms: One, the "other voices" interludes sometimes break up the narrative flow a bit too much. But Rich being what he was -- the second leader of a highly complex organization -- would naturally feel drawn to this kind of structure, in which value is placed on multiple viewpoints. Two, and I can't believe I'm writing this: Most books, if length is a problem, suffer from being too long. With "Skunk Works," I was hoping it would last even longer. Again, though, the book's concision is indicative of its author's personality; Rich was a "get it done" kind of guy who belied the image of a greedy contractor stretching out a project for as long as possible. Skunk Works prided itself on making or even beating deadlines, and thus Rich the author wasn't going to write a bloated book.

🍪 Privacy & Transparency

This classic history of America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies is "a gripping technothriller in which the technology is real" ( New York Times Book Review). PDF / EPUB File Name: Skunk_Works__A_Personal_Memoir_of_My_Years_-_Ben_R_Rich.pdf, Skunk_Works__A_Personal_Memoir_of_My_Years_-_Ben_R_Rich.epub

Further, Rich covers many of the technical details and challenges that the Skunk Works team faced overcoming engineering problems, along with the more straightforward difficulties with funding and politics. He litters the story with personal details, sometimes discussing pilots who were injured, captured or killed. He also tells part of his own personal story, including the death of his wife and his second marriage. He even delves into the life of his boss, Kelly Johnson, with whom he eventually became very close, following years of being intimidated by him. This is a “behind-the-scenes” look at how the United States’ most successful planes were created. The book explains in simple terms WHY the engineering was so impressive and how a group of motivated men managed to create planes that are unmatched even to this day. You certainly don’t have to be an engineer to find the book intriguing. Both engineers and folks who hate math will find this book a fascinating read. I’d highly recommend this to anyone who has the least interest in American history as I believe the story in “Skunk Works” is one everyone should know. The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems). The contractor must be delegated the authority to test his final product in flight. He can and must test it in the initial stages. If he doesn't, he rapidly loses his competency to design other vehicles. Today you can find the term “skunk works” in any dictionary, mainly defined as “a small laboratory or department of a large company used for doing new scientific research or developing new products.” How to set up a skunk works team

Despite the Tom Clancy recommendation glaring on the cover of this edition, Skunk Works isn't a bad read. Whatever the writing skills of engineer Rich, cowriter Janos's collaboration with him resulted in an engrossing text. Of course I've long had a special interest in the history of espionage, so the subject-matter went far towards keeping me involved.

Chapter 16 on conclusions, is a detailed very specific list of procurement process changes that are necessary If great technology is going to be able to continue to override the political self-interest of individuals in the procurement process. Culver's use of "Skonk Works" caught on with his colleagues on the team and eventually morphed into Skunk Works. Part of the Skunk Works secret to success is getting big corporations to work small and communicate more effectively. Very interesting and geeky discussion of the attempts to build a hydrogen powered aircraft in the Sixties. "On the drawing boards was a design for the dart-shaped CL-400 that would fly at 100,000 feet at Mach 2.5 with a 3,000-mile range. The body was enormous, dwarfing any airplane on the drawing boards. On the playing field at Yankee Stadium, for example, the tail would cover home plate and the nose nudge the right-field foul pole, 296 feet away….And the reason the body was so gigantic was that it would carry a fuel load of liquid hydrogen weighing 162,850 pounds, making it the world’s largest thermos bottle. Flying at more than twice the speed of sound, the outer shell of the body would blaze from heat friction above 350 degrees F while the inside skin would hold the frosty fuel at temperatures of minus 400 F—an 800-degree temperature differential that represented an awesomely complicated thermodynamic problem." Isolated, a Skunk Works team is protected from the corporate bureaucracy that often freezes innovation.Kelly Johnson and his team designed and built the XP-80 in only 143 days, seven less than was required. Whenever a business needs to do something bold, “going Skunk” is a great way to get innovation done. Finally, Ben Rich articulates a positive and deterministic vision for America and American technologists that has become rare in the 21st century's worship of market efficiency and indeterminate optimism. He ran one of the most high-performing engineering teams in the world, and he's completely confident that without those people, working together, the world of aviation would be totally different. In the face of the statistical historians of technology, Rich provides a full-throated defense of exceptionalism, not just at the individual level, but exceptionalism at the organizational level. There are places that are special, and the Skunk Works during the mid 20th century was one of them.