Early morning, April 18, 1943. A formation of 16 P-38 Lightning aircraft cruises 50 feet above the Solomon Sea en route to a fixed point 400 miles northwest of Guadalcanal. Secrecy and detection avoidance demand complete radio silence and a roundabout route that adds 200 miles to the trip.

Operation Vengeance is underway. Its target: Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Imperial Japanese Combined Fleet.

Lockheed-built P-38s and their crews had a finite window of opportunity to intercept Yamamoto, who was traveling southeast at the end of a 315-mile leg from Rabaul to Bougainville in the South Pacific. Arriving precisely one minute ahead of plan, the four attack group pilots found and shot down Yamamoto’s transport bomber. It was a crucial morale builder as Allied forces continued their long journey toward Japan.

“It happened on the shoulders of giants, the men and women who built the planes and then operated them in the Army Air Corps,” said retired Air Force Gen. Gary North, vice president of customer requirements at Lockheed Martin. “You think about the P-38, the B-24—very successful in both theaters of operation. They helped lead us out of World War II and into the birth of our Air Force.”

Lockheed Aircraft Corporation was an early air power pioneer, part of an American industrial machine that ramped up wartime production on a scale unparalleled before or since. Lockheed’s ascendance as an exemplar of American aerospace ingenuity and, in the wake of its 1995 merger with Martin Marietta, to its position as the world’s preeminent supplier of advanced defense technology, from precision munitions and hypersonic missiles to radar-evading 5th Generation fighter aircraft. 

Lockheed Martin’s collaboration with the Air Force evolved steadily over time as a closely integrated partnership, the result of a culture uniquely constructed to nurture the best innovators and rapidly adapt to changing threats and opportunities.

“You change things because the threat necessitates it, and we saw that in the Reagan years, which was the buildup that made us so successful in Desert Storm and beyond,” North said. “And then we saw an innovation of change in 9/11—these events, these shifting tectonic plates that forced you to be able to adapt at the speed of need.”

Foundational Relationship

Two months after Operation Vengeance, Lockheed experts were called in to the Army Tactical Service Command to help counter the growing threat from German jet fighters. Within a month, Lockheed engineer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson and his team conceived what would become the P-80 Shooting Star, the United States’ first operational jet. Without a contract in hand, Lockheed engineers began work with the goal of delivering their first prototype in 150 days. Johnson’s team did it in just 143.

Steeped in secrecy, the P-80 grew out of Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works® division. Even now, 85 percent of Skunk Works programs remain shrouded in secrecy, but its legacy is long and dazzling, including developments that led to the U-2, SR-71, F-117, F-22, F-35 and so much more.

Cold War Collaboration

Lockheed was on the forefront of a new era in which the U.S. found itself locked in a strategic competition and Cold War with the Soviet Union. Discretion and revolutionary design were essential to gain strategic advantage in the high-stakes competition playing out on the world stage.

“Coming out of World War II, leaders realized that the world was going to change in the strategic domain, particularly with the advent of the atomic age and nuclear weapons,” North said. “This generated some strategic thought.”

It was a natural fit for Lockheed and the Air Force, and they consistently worked together to leapfrog the international competition.

As the Cold War intensified, speed and performance were the focus, and Lockheed broke one barrier after another. Its X-7 ramjet test vehicle, which began development after World War II and continued into the 1950s, set records for air breathing flight, achieving speeds of more than 2,800 mph and reaching 106,000 feet in altitude. After scraping the edge of the atmosphere, Lockheed created its Missiles Division, now known as Lockheed Martin Space.

Lockheed’s three-stage X-17 solid-fuel rocket, developed in the 1950s, could achieve 9,000 mph, providing crucial data for better understanding the rigors of re-entering the atmosphere that helped shape the future of ICBM development.

Throughout the Cold War, the need to understand what adversaries were doing demanded its own technological advancements. Lockheed’s U-2 Dragon Lady flew so high—more than 70,000 feet—that it was believed to be beyond the reach of ground-based interceptors when it was introduced in 1955.

On Oct. 14, 1962, Maj. Richard Heyser completed a photo shoot exposing the establishment of Soviet nuclear missiles in San Cristobal, Cuba. The mission captured 928 photos that led to a showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union that put the two nations on the brink of nuclear war. Two weeks later, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, ending the Cuban missile crisis but proving the enduring value of irrefutable surveillance photography.

In the early 1960s, two schools of design thought emerged for dealing with adversary threats. One was fly fast at low level. That school produced the F-111, a deep strike aircraft that remained in the USAF inventory for three decades, from the Vietnam era to Operation Desert Storm, where it destroyed more targets and logged more missions than any other aircraft in the conflict.

The other design path was to fly high and go fast. Lockheed’s single-seat A-12 very high altitude reconnaissance aircraft reached Mach 3 in 1962, paving the way for the two-seat SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance jet, which had the advantage of extreme speed that the U-2 lacked. 

The Blackbird exemplified the speed of the times, exceeding 2,000 mph. And it could sustain flight well above 80,000 feet. If detected, it could outrun any aircraft or missile that tried to catch it. After logging 53,490 hours—11,675 of those more than Mach 3—the SR-71 retired in 1998, concluding its 30-plus-year history with speed and altitude records that remain unchallenged to this day.

In 1990, an SR-71 left Los Angeles headed for retirement at Washington, D.C.’s Air and Space Museum. Along the way, the aircraft set four speed records, including making the transnational flight of 2,299 miles in just 64 minutes, 20 seconds—an average of 2,144.8 mph.

But again the threat advanced and something completely different was required. “Most people don’t know this, but the SR-71 was generally recognized as the first marginally stealth airplane, because some parts of the platform had nascent technology and coatings on it,” North said.

The next phase of stealth had little similarity to the long, sleek, and powerful SR-71’s iconic design. Lockheed’s F-117 Nighthawk was a Skunk Works special, drawing from numerous other aircraft and featuring a stunningly unique design with angled facets and an otherworldly look.

Science magazines hinted at stealth, but little was known about the aircraft. The Nighthawk’s combat debut came in Operation Just Cause over Panama in 1989, with a curtain call in which it provided the opening fireworks for Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Lockheed Martin took stealth to a new level with the development of the F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter and, later, the multi-role, multi-national F-35 Lightning II.

Timeless Innovation

Lockheed wasn’t all about speed and stealth, however. Its C-130 Hercules remains a workhorse of the fleet nearly 70 years after its original introduction. The aircraft has been reinvented multiple times over the decades, and its timely utility makes it the longest produced military aircraft in history, flown by air forces around the world. Its variations range from special operations AC-130s to cargo aircraft and specialized versions fitted for various intelligence and electronic warfare applications.

Its massive sibling, Lockheed’s C-5 Galaxy, remains the largest airlifter in the Air Force inventory 52 years after its introduction. Its payload capacity is twice that of any other USAF cargo aircraft.

During Operation Allied Force over Serbia in 1999, Air Force aircrews flying Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters helped recover pilots down behind enemy lines. Many more were recovered during Operations Enduring Freedom in 2001 and Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Peacetime utilization of the HH-60s was also high. After Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, more than 20 Pave Hawk crews flew in and around New Orleans to save more than 4,300 Americans.

Following the Pave Hawk is today’s HH-60W Jolly Green Giant II Combat Rescue Helicopter. With greater range, integrated avionics and enhanced digital connectivity, these helicopters provide Air Force rescue crews with new tools for their noble mission—That Others May Live.

These successes and many more are part of a larger evolving process—scaling innovative solutions through the development of critical, breakthrough technologies that ensure those who serve get in front of emerging threats and disasters.

21st Century Security Solutions

The dynamic threat landscape is driving innovation in stealth, information sharing, command and control, and hypersonic missile technology. Accelerating the integration of digital technology and delivery of advanced capabilities brings faster decision-making to the defense arena. Ensuring networked security is vital.

Hypersonics, first pioneered with the X-7 and X-17, are seen as the future of warfare. In March 2022, Lockheed Martin, in partnership with The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force Research Lab and Aerojet Rocketdyne, successfully demonstrated its Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC). This historic flight reached speeds in excess of Mach 5—3,800 mph, altitudes greater than 65,000 feet and helped further understanding of operations in the high-speed flight regime. Just two months later, Lockheed Martin tested the AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), and in July a second ARRW demonstration achieved speeds greater than Mach 5.

Lockheed Martin engineers demonstrated their multi-domain prowess in July 2022, employing the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 Lightning II as an aerial sensor to help a Lockheed Martin MIM-104 PATRIOT Advanced Capability missile intercept a cruise missile in a successful test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

The F-35’s versatility as a flying sensor and communications suite is unparalleled the world over. Combining radar-evading stealth with the most advanced integrated avionics suite, it is the centerpiece of the U.S. Air Force’s fighter modernization strategy and the choice of U.S. allies on four continents. The Air Force is building out F-35 capacity and capability, bringing up operational squadrons in the continental United States, Alaska, and the U.K., and operating seamlessly with allies.

The Lightning II built on Lockheed Martin’s record of innovation, including the earlier 5th Generation experience with the F-22 Raptor and on the demonstrated success of the ubiquitous F-16 Fighting Falcon.

First flown in 1976 and operational with the USAF since 1978—and the first of more than 25 Allied countries shortly after— the F-16 remains a marvel of innovation, North said. Having flown more than 3,700 hours in the airplane, he said he never doubted its remarkable design and production quality. “Every upgrade added to its capability, a demonstration of the teamwork between the military and Lockheed Martin in continually improving on a superior airplane.”

Today, Lockheed Martin is still at it, leveraging the “secret sauce” of its Skunk Works division, North said. “The secret is the incredible relationship between the government, the program managers and the labs that we work with, and our ability to recruit, retain and develop talent,” he said.

The mutually supporting partnership between Lockheed Martin engineers and Air Force engineers and Airmen fuels a continuous striving for the next evolution of aviation technology. This partnership is rooted in a deep understanding and a shared commitment to the mission ahead, and the desire to stay “ahead of ready” in the needs of the warfighters.

“The thing that really drives the relationship is a desire to always match to the needs of the mission,” North said. “Lockheed Martin does that better than any other company in the world.”         

Lockheed & USAF: A Long-Term Partnership

Lockheed Martin’s history with the Air Force dates back long before USAF was an independent military branch. Here are just a few highlights from the past 75 years.