Lockheed Martin (1946): Skunk Works Cold War

F-16, F-35, and earlier types in ROK service -- procurement history Lockheed Martin is a 1995 merger name laid over two older aviation companies. Allan Lockheed's firm (1926 in its famous form) became the Skunk Works of the U-2 (1955 first flight) and SR-71, the F-104 Starfighter, and the C-130 Hercules. Glenn L. Martin's company (1912) built bombers and, later as Martin Marietta, Titan missiles and space hardware. The merger was a post-Cold War industrial event: fewer primes, larger lobbying, a "last supper" of US defence consolidation.

This page is firm history -- plants, programmes, hearings -- not a product brochure and not a how-to for any aircraft or missile. Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich are the English vernacular of the secret shop. Norman Augustine is the vernacular of the 1990s executive who wrote about the industry's shrink. Marillyn Hewson and James Taiclet are later public CEOs.

Korean procurement memory is thick: F-16, then F-35, and a century of US types in ROK service. That is an alliance-industrial fact on the ROK military page too. Intensity is low (a company, not a campaign). TechShift is high because Skunk Works types changed reconnaissance and, later, the F-35 changed a generation of air-force politics.