Conceived in 1943, the Skunk Works division was formed by Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and a hand-picked team of engineers with the aim of building America's first jet fighter. On paper, the specifications read like works of pure fantasy: a spy plane capable of taking crystal-clear photographs from 70,000 feet. A Mach-3 aircraft that could fly continuously for hours on end and literally outrun missiles. An attack aircraft that rendered itself invisible to enemy radar.

Yet, they succeeded. It turned out that impossible tasks were, and continue to be, the team's area of expertise.

In just 143 days, after working under a shroud of secrecy, the P-80 Shooting Star was unveiled, a sleek, lightning-fast fighter that went on to win history's first jet-versus-jet dogfight over Korea in 1950. Not resting on its laurels, in 1954 the team went on to create the U-2 Dragon Lady, the world's first aircraft dedicated to espionage. Next, in 1964, was the SR-71 Blackbird, which remains the world's fastest and highest-flying aircraft. In 1981, they unveiled the F-117 Nighthawk, the world's first "invisible" aircraft.

In addition to the team's innovation and engineering prowess, Johnson's ruthless commitment to maintaining small teams and fiercely anti-bureaucratic processes proved difficult for competitors to replicate.
This is the story of Lockheed's developments in the dark, where the impossible was proven possible time and time again.