LOCAL : Skunk Works Creator Dies at 80
Clarence L. (Kelly) Johnson, creator of Lockheed Corp.’s secret Skunk Works aircraft factory and a leading designer of the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, died today. He was 80.
Johnson died at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after an illness of many years, a Lockheed statement said. The illness was not disclosed.
Johnson organized the Skunk Works in 1943 to build the XP-80 Shooting Star, the United States’ first production jet fighter.
Many aircraft and spacecraft bore his mark: the P-38 Lightning in World War II, the Constellation transports, the Hercules cargo planes, the P2V antisubmarine patrol aircraft and the Agena spacecraft, among others.
Johnson, born in Ishpeming, Mich., on Feb. 27, 1910, went to work for Lockheed as a tool designer in 1933. He went on to head the Skunk Works for 30 years.
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