Two aircraft firms
1912-45 in US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth: Martin and Lockheed as separate stories. A memory map, not a present overlay.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale44
Intensity25
Duration68
Tech shift70
Political impact55
Cultural memory38
LessMore
Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
What is Skunk Works?
Lockheed's advanced-development organisation, associated with Kelly Johnson and later Ben Rich, and with types such as the U-2 and SR-71. A historical shop, not a visitor workshop.
What did Martin bring?
Bomber heritage and, as Martin Marietta, Titan missiles and space contracting -- the other half of the hyphen.
Why does Korea appear here?
Because ROK purchases of Lockheed types (notably F-16 and F-35) are a dated alliance-industrial story. See also the ROK military page.
Is the F-35 "history"?
Its procurement and politics are already a thick public file. Performance claims stay out of this encyclopedia except as disputed hearing objects.
Who is Kelly Johnson?
The engineer-manager name of mid-century Skunk Works. Memoir fame exceeds any single airframe.
Burbank/Palmdale lore, Marietta, Fort Worth as F-16 geography, ROK air bases as customer geography.
Capitol Hill as a map point.
Maps
Skunk Works Cold War
1946-90 in US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth: U-2, SR-71, missiles. A memory map, not a present overlay.
Consolidation
1991-95 in US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth: The merger season. A memory map, not a present overlay.
F-22 / F-35 politics
1996-2015 in US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth: Hearings as the public file. A memory map, not a present overlay.
Services and exports
After 2015 in US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth: ROK and other customers as news. A memory map, not a present overlay.
Portrayals
Allan Lockheed biographies
The usual English doorway into Lockheed Martin: The name on the California firm -- spelling later standardised without the hyphen in some tellings.
Glenn L. Martin biographies
The paired doorway: The 1912 ancestor whose bombers and later missile firm fill the other half of the merger.
School survey chapters
Where Lockheed Martin (1995 merger (Lockheed 1926; Glenn L. Martin Company 1912)) is a paragraph or a unit in US/UK/AU/CA -- often thinner than US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth local hours.
Local museums / sites in US plants and Pentagon offi.
Thicker than the English paragraph. Services and exports is the usual late pilgrimage caption.
Feature film / television
If Lockheed Martin has a visual canon, it probably outruns the monographs. Treat film as memory, not as a log.
Korean comparative essays
A Korean reader may pair Lockheed Martin with 1950-53, Inchon, Tsushima, or the ROK force-structure story even when the campaign was elsewhere.
Rituals
1912 / 2013-20 dates
The usual ritual poles of Lockheed Martin: Glenn L. Martin Company and Hewson public era.
Museum and cemetery wreaths
Official and family rites at sites in US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth. Marillyn Hewson is often the civilian or corrective name on the plaque.
Classroom minutes
Where Lockheed Martin is on the syllabus -- in Anglophone schools often beside 11 November or a Second World War unit, not always beside US plants and Pentagon offices; export customers; Skunk Works as a California myth's own calendar.
Sayings
Udvar-Hazy's Blackbird is the English pilgrimage.
No live line-rate or classified shop address.