As he was leaving, Brzezinski asked me a bottom-line question: “If I were to accurately describe the significance of this stealth breakthrough to the president, what should I tell him?” “Two things,” I replied. “It changes the way that air wars will be fought from now on. And it cancels out all the tremendous investment the Russians have made in their defensive ground-to-air system. We can overfly them any time, at will.”" 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. Designate a leader and provide them with full control of the project, in all aspects. “He/she must only report to a division president or higher.” This move is only possible if there is trust. Without trust in the leader and his/her team, people outside the project, including the customer, will intervene in a counter-productive manner. #2 Viciously minimize the team The book opens with the first test flight of the F-117, the first real stealth fighter, and the first plane built under Rich’s leadership after he took over from Kelly Johnson in 1975. He describes the process of winning the contract to develop the plane, and the incredible engineering work to make the plane practically invisible to enemy radar through a combination of flat surfaces and absorptive materials. One of the biggest problems turned out to be designing a canopy that would deflect radar while being able to be seen out of. Otherwise, the pilot’s head actually had a bigger radar profile than the plane! The biggest test of the plane was the bombing mission the first night of Operation Desert Storm, against heavily defended Baghdad, in which key command and control facilities, and communication facilities were taken out under heavy anti-aircraft fire without a single plane being lost, not only that night but throughout the conflict.

A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided. There’s an enigmatic hint in their words: “Darkstar’s capabilities could be more than mere fiction. They could be reality…” There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly. Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn't have to keep running to the bank to support government projects.Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn says, “ If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” The first was how the Skunk Works defined its mission: "to develop low cost and rapid prototypes to achieve extremely difficult but specific objectives." The combination of extreme difficulty and extreme specificity is the recipe for innovation. 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.

The new factory is Skunk Works’ first since the 1980s. Instead of being designed to assemble a specific aircraft, the building has no fixed machines or tooling, which means it can be easily reconfigured to host new projects, Babione said. And there’s more to the book than the story of technical achievements. For one thing, it includes some of the more interesting failures. We also get to hear the dramatic stories of men who flew these planes, like the U-2 pilot who accidentally flew into the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly sparking WW3, to the stealth bomber pilot whose bomb bay doors didn’t close after he dropped his payload in Iraq. With the doors open he was uncomfortably exposed to enemy radar, and he had to crank the doors shut by hand as a missile streaked towards him (once the doors were shut he became invisible again and the missile missed). So Kelly’s team rented a circus tent to work on the project and delivered the fighter in just 143 days. According to lore, the tent had a pungent smell because it was sitting adjacent to a plastics factory in Burbank. The name Skunk Works was born. IT teams can connect their Managed Google Play accounts to Intune to get the best of both management tools. Integrate the two for...Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been spent and committed but also projected costs to the conclusion of the program. 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.