Pasadena : Lockheed Gift Funds Chair

The Lockheed Corp. has given Caltech $350,000 to establish the Clarence L. Johnson Professorship in Aeronautics.

The chair honors Johnson, a former vice president of Lockheed who headed its advanced development projects. He was named senior adviser to corporate management after his retirement in 1975.

Johnson pioneered the production of some of America’s most revolutionary military aircraft, including the P-38, F-80, F-104, U2 and SR-71 in Lockheed’s Burbank plant. The first person named to occupy the chair is Hans Hornung, director of the Institute of Experimental Fluid Mechanics in Gottingen, West Germany.