From Lockheed and Glenn L. Martin to the 1995 merger -- a firm history of Skunk Works, missiles, and prime-contract politics.
Educational history. Casualty figures are documented ranges. This is not operational advice, a ranking of nations, or a how-to for weapons or coups.
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.
Deep introduction
Lockheed Martin is what US defence consolidation looked like after 1991 -- a letterhead that still carries a California shop myth.
Vegas, Electras, then war transports and the postwar Skunk Works. The F-104's German crash scandal and the C-130's endless career are two morals in one catalogue.
U-2 and SR-71 are reconnaissance politics, not flight manuals.
Glenn Martin's bombers; Titan as an ICBM and a space launcher; a Denver-and-Maryland industrial geography.
See the ICBM page for the missile type; this page for the contractor.
The merger, the F-22 and F-35 as political objects, and a services-and-C4ISR expansion. Hearings on cost and concurrency are the public file.
No classified performance table belongs here.
ROK F-16 and F-35 buys are dated procurement stories -- offset, industrial participation, alliance signalling.
Not a live ROK ORBAT and not an advertising page.
Dated history of Lockheed Martin (1995 merger (Lockheed 1926; Glenn L. Martin Company 1912)) in US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth.
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02Historical forces and institutions of Lockheed Martin -- not a live order of battle.
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03How Lockheed Martin unfolded as historical sequence, not instruction.
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04Human and material cost of Lockheed Martin, as documented ranges.
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05People and debates around Lockheed Martin.
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06Afterlives and unresolved questions of Lockheed Martin.
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07Maps, portrayals and rituals of Lockheed Martin.
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