Ben R. Rich worked in Lockheed’s secret projects division, the Skunk Works, for nearly forty years in total, leading it for about fifteen years. During his career, Rich participated in the development of the top-secret U-2 and SR-71 spy planes, as well as the F-117A stealth fighter, all of which are prominently featured in this book. 📚

The book is also, in its own way, a tribute to Rich’s predecessor, Kelly Johnson, under whom Rich worked for years before being chosen as his successor. Johnson was an aviation genius who could intuitively evaluate the characteristics of aircraft with astonishing accuracy. He was also clearly the Steve Jobs of his time, micromanaging when necessary and giving his subordinates a piece of his mind if work was done lazily.

The book is full of delightful anecdotes and interludes from various parties, such as CIA and Air Force pilots who operated Skunk Works equipment. In the movie Top Gun, Maverick gives a MiG pilot the middle finger from close range, but in the book, an SR-71 pilot tells of cutting across France without permission, leaving a Mirage fighter that had pulled alongside for identification seemingly standing still with a wave of the middle finger and the activation of the afterburners. The book also tells, for example, of an unfortunate bat population living in an airplane hangar that met its doom by crashing into a stealth plane invisible both to radar and to the bats' echolocation.

The book strongly brings to mind Josh Dean’s work The Taking of K-129, which tells how the CIA developed technology during the Cold War to raise a sunken Soviet submarine, as both involve the development of top-secret new high technology in the same era. I can recommend both if you’re looking for real-life techno-thrillers.