How One Engineer's "Illegal" Idea Created America's First Jet Fighter in Just 143 days

How One Engineer's "Illegal" Idea Created America's First Jet Fighter in Just 143 days

​In June 1943, a terrifying intelligence report landed on General Hap Arnold's desk: Germany was on the verge of deploying the Me-262 jet fighter, 100 mph faster than anything America had. The US had no jet program. The official estimate for a new American jet was three years. General Arnold needed a miracle.
​Enter Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, a brilliant 33-year-old Lockheed engineer. For two years, Johnson had been secretly violating military orders, sketching jet fighter designs in his personal notebooks. When the call came for an American jet, Johnson was ready.
​This is the incredible true story of how Kelly Johnson's unauthorized, handshake-deal program—operated out of a leaky circus tent next to a smelly plastics factory—produced the XP-80 Shooting Star, America's first operational jet fighter, in just 143 days.
​Discover the legendary origin of the Lockheed Skunk Works and Kelly’s 14 Rules, the revolutionary principles of rapid innovation that would go on to create the U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117 Stealth Fighter.
​Did breaking the rules save America's strategic bombing campaign? Find out how one engineer's willingness to ignore bureaucracy changed the course of aerospace engineering forever.
​🔍 Keywords & Topics Covered:
​XP-80 Shooting Star
​Kelly Johnson
​Skunk Works
​Lockheed
​Me-262
​World War 2
​Jet Fighter History
​Hap Arnold
​P-38 Lightning
​Aviation History
​Innovation