Skunk Works scents more business in defense/space.

Lockheed unit's new chief plans to stick to its forte

Lockheed Corp.'s famous Skunk Works research division will continue as a defense and space facility despite massive cuts in government spending, said Jack Gordon, who on March 1 will become the unit's sixth president.

Gordon, 53, said executives at the Skunk Works have considered seeking out or expanding into research for commercial applications.

"But our forte has been defense and space, and that is what we will continue to do," said Gordon, who last week talked about the facility with outgoing president Sherman Mullin. Mullin, 58, retired after a 35-year career with Lockheed that included the last three years as president of the Skunk Works, the secret development facility which is formally called Lockheed Corp.'s Advanced Development Co.

The Skunk Works was founded in 1943 as a military aircraft research division of Calabasas-based Lockheed. Over the years, the facility has become famous for developing some of the country's most advanced military aircraft, including the U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 Blackbird and, most recently, the F-117 stealth fighter.

For years, the Skunk Works was based in Burbank near the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport, but the facility is in the process of moving to Palmdale.

Gordon, a mechanical engineer by training, said the Skunk Works' stock-in-trade will continue to be research into new aircraft, including reusable space vehicles.

In addition, the Skunk Works plans to continue to promote and develop "stealth" aircraft. The Skunk Works is often credited with the development of stealth aircraft that can evade detection by radar. Probably the most famous of Skunk Works' stealth aircraft is the F-117, which became famous for its successes in the Gulf War of 1990-91.

Recently, some political leaders have questioned the usefulness and financial viability of stealth technology.

"The stealth critics have not slowed down our development of stealth technology," said Mullin. He said the primary focus of stealth technology arguments should be over how to use it rather than whether or not there should be further development.

"Stealth," he asserted, "is still of pre-eminent importance to the U.S."

Over the past five years, employment at the Skunk Works has gone from about 8,500 to its current level of 4,300, its lowest since the mid-1970s. At one time, the exact date of which is not available because for many years figures were not revealed, employment at the Skunk Works was 1,500 workers.

Gordon said that by the middle of this year, Skunk Works personnel will be completely out of the Burbank facility and that the current level of employment should remain stable into the foreseeable future.

Both Gordon and Mullin, who will remain as a consultant to the Skunk Works while he travels and begins a new career as a business and management writer, said the aim of the facility is to pursue several different projects.

"Our strategy has been to have a lot of potential programs on the table ... and hope that someone would buy them," said Mullin.

Even though there have been big cuts in Department of Defense spending since 1990 -- and projections that the reductions will continue -- both Mullin and Gordon said they feel fairly optimistic about the future of the Skunk Works.

They pointed to indications from the Clinton administration that technological research will continue to receive funding, even though actual systems procurement will decline.

In addition, they said Skunk Works has an ally in the new secretary of defense, William Perry. They said Perry is a strong supporter of stealth technology. Many of the Skunk Works' projects have been developed in secret. For instance, the F-117 was under development for almost a decade before its existence was made public in the late 1980s.

Gordon said he expects that, with the cuts in defense spending, there will be fewer so-called "black," or secret, projects. "I think there is going to be more pressures to do less work in the black realm," he said.

Among the current Skunk Works projects that the two executives would identify are:

* development of a reusable space vehicle that could reach Earth orbit after taking off from Earth like a commercial aircraft;

* upgrades to the U-2, high-altitude spy plane;

* upgrades to the F-117;

* upgrades to the SR-71, another high-altitude spy plane.