Lockheed Aviation History: The Forgotten Early Burbank Years And Skunk Works [1:33:56]

YouTube ^ | June 1, 2026 | DroneScapes

[SunkenCiv]

Narrated in large part by 99 year old Lockheed retiree Harvey Kristen. 

Lockheed Aviation History:
The Forgotten Early Burbank Years And Skunk Works | 1:33:56 
DroneScapes | 506K subscribers | 38,862 views | June 1, 2026

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: aircraft; aviation; godsgravesglyphs; lockheed; skunkworks

[SunkenCiv]

Due to length, no transcript will be posted. DO NOT PING ME if you decide to.

[SunkenCiv]

00:00:00 The Birth of an Aviation Titan
00:03:37 Crafting the Wooden Lockheed Vega
00:06:24 The Detroit Aircraft Bankruptcy and $40,000 Sale
00:11:24 Famous Pioneers: Wiley Post and Amelia Earhart
00:12:36 The All-Metal Electra and the Twin-Tail Design
00:17:29 Charles Lindbergh and the Sirius Seaplane
00:19:46 Howard Hughes and the Super Electra
00:22:03 Designing the Hudson Bomber for the Royal Air Force
00:25:09 The P-38 Lightning Assembly Line
00:29:07 The Vega Company and B-17 Production
00:32:08 Camouflaging the Burbank Factories
00:33:51 Kelly Johnson and the Secret P-80 Jet Project
00:37:31 The Elegant Lockheed Constellation
00:41:44 Wartime Expansion and Rosie the Riveter
00:45:31 Post-War Patrols: The P2V Neptune
00:48:21 The Massive Lockheed Constitution
00:50:30 Turboprops and the L-188 Electra
00:53:38 The U-2 High-Altitude Reconnaissance Aircraft
00:55:29 Forging the Titanium SR-71 Blackbird
00:58:09 The L-1011 TriStar and the F-117A Stealth Fighter
01:06:33 The Legacy of Clarence “Kelly” Johnson
01:28:32 Skunk Works Flight Testing the D-21 Drone

[SunkenCiv]

From the wood-and-canvas pioneers that carried Amelia Earhart to the titanium-skinned "Blackbirds" that outran missiles at Mach 3, the history of Lockheed Martin is a century-long record of building the impossible.

Every Lockheed Martin Aircraft Ever Made | 13:11
Statewide USA | 34.3K subscribers | 23,498 views | January 16, 2026

[SunkenCiv]

In 1926, Allan Lockheed, John Northrop, Kenneth Kay and Fred Keeler secured funding to form the Lockheed Aircraft Company in Hollywood. This new company utilized some of the same technology originally developed for the Model S-1 to design the Vega Model. In March 1928, the company relocated to Burbank, California, and by year's end reported sales exceeding one million dollars. From 1926 to 1928 the company produced over 80 aircraft and employed more than 300 workers who by April 1929 were building five aircraft per week. In July 1929, majority shareholder Fred Keeler sold 87% of the Lockheed Aircraft Company to Detroit Aircraft Corporation. In August 1929, Allan Loughead resigned.

Early Years of Lockheed | Stock Footage | 5:45
The Film Gate | 105K subscribers | 1,262 views | December 25, 2019

[SunkenCiv]

I've not yet finished it, and when it began I didn't think I would finish, but I've been watching some and listening to it all the way through. Been excellent thus far.

[SunkenCiv]

[Sidebar] Following a landmark framework agreement in January, we have been awarded a contract by the U.S. government to continue critical accelerated production of PAC‑3® MSE and deliver record‑breaking interceptors for the United States and our allies this year.

Most recently proven during Operation Epic Fury, PAC‑3® MSE is the undisputed world's most advanced air‑defense missile and is regularly used in combat operations to defeat emerging threats.

This announcement adds government funding to what industry has already invested to maintain robust munitions stockpiles.

Lockheed Martin Receives Contract
to Accelerate PAC-3® MSE Production | 1:04
Lockheed Martin | 656K subscribers | 11,757 views | April 13, 2026

[Scrambler Bob]

M4L

[Theophilus]

Incredible Innovation!

[Theophilus]

Incredible Innovation!

[Carry_Okie]

In the mid-1980s while still in college, I worked a summer for SoCal Gas, doing a bogus job as an “energy cadet.” I drove all over LA and got to see a ton of industry. After graduation I worked in what was left of the Los Angeles aircraft military electronics business.

Back then, if you wanted to make a prototype of anything, LA had everything within reach (but for the freeway traffic). Machine shops were populated with old guys from the days of the Space Race. Scrap yards had every metal shape imaginable. There was even magnesium casting. Turnaround was in no time.

Yet the handwriting was already on the wall. The only new factory equipment was sophisticated stuff for the military. Most of the workers in regular assembly were immigrants. Environmental regulations had already killed most new investment except for pollution control equipment, just to keep things going. Everything was all old and on its last legs, but at least it still worked. It was obvious though that the future would be dimmer.

[Psalm 73]

And Kelly Johnson didn’t even have a Mechanical Engineering degree. Go figure!

[Paal Gulli]

Alan Loughead founded the Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company in 1912 but it went bankrupt in 1920. Loughead wasn’t completely discouraged so in 1926 he founded the Lockheed Corporation, but he was tired of people misdenouncing his Scottish surname so he spelled it phoenetically. In 1934 he legally changed his surname to match.

[Taxman]

ping

[fidelis]

My Dad moved from San Diego, where he was born and raised, to Los Angeles in 1961 to work for Lockheed in Burbank. At the time he was working for General Dynamics (near the Marine Corp Recruit Depot), but projects there were winding down and he saw the writing on the wall. My uncle (my Mom's brother) had already made the move to LA and Lockheed and he'd tell him how things were booming up there and people were making money hand over fist. So we made the move. I was about 5 years old and we settled in Tujunga, a small town in the mountains between the San Fernando Valley and Pasadena. A lot of aerospace workers lived there, including a large German population.

I don't know what projects my Dad worked on in those early years, but by the time I became cognizent of such things, he was working on the new L-1011 airliner. He got laid off for a time and worked for a small company in the Valley called Nordskog, which at that time manufactured gallies for airliners. After a couple of years he got called back to Lockheed, but this time up in Palmdale, which at that time was literally in the middle of nowhere in the high desert in the proximity of Edwards AFB. After that contract was through, the layoffs came again and he hired on at Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, which at that time was a division of Rockwell International (it eventually got acquired by Boeing and Aerojet). Rockwell was the main contractor for the Space Shuttle and Rocketdyne manufactured the main engines (not the boosters that blew up one of the shuttles--that was Morton-Thiokol in Utah, which I got to visit years later as an explosives expert in the fire department). He retired from there around 1998, I think.

[Bon of Babble]

The area where the “Skunk Works” once was is now a business center and outdoor mall.

[JohnnyP]

In the mid ‘80’s the company I worked for had a project at Area 51. I got to work on it for a few months. On Mondays, I drove to Lockheed in Burbank, and together with about 100 others, we flew to Groom Lake on a Red and White 737.

[TexasKamaAina]

Thanks for posting; will watch this evening.