One person in charge
Give the program lead near-total control. Every extra sign-off is a week the prototype isn't flying.
matiskunkworks.net · parked
Descend
matiskunkworks is in GOAT Payroll, product, engineering, design, and the rest of OCMI.
Parked, not abandoned. Skunkworks is what keeps innovation alive.
Relocated Looking for GOAT Payroll? It graduated to goatpayroll.io// from kelly johnson's 14 rules, paraphrased
Innovation dies in committees. It lives in skunkworks.
Restrict the crew, viciously
Use a few good people, a fraction of a "normal" team. Small crews move like a single mind.
Few reports, real records
Skip the status decks. Write down the work that matters, thoroughly, and nothing else.
Keep outsiders out
Protect the weird idea from daylight until it's strong enough to survive it.
// built in the dark
The original skunkworks.
XP-80 Shooting Star
Kelly Johnson's crew designs and builds America's first operational jet fighter in 143 days, working out of a rented circus tent in Burbank.
"Skonk Works"
The name is borrowed from the moonshine still in the Li'l Abner comic strip. It later becomes Skunk Works.
U-2
A spy plane that cruised above 70,000 feet, flown less than a year after the contract was signed.
SR-71 Blackbird
Mach 3.2+, 85,000 feet, built largely from titanium. Its speed records still stand.
F-117 Nighthawk
The first operational stealth aircraft, grown from the Have Blue demonstrator.
FIG. 01 · SR-71 BLACKBIRDTOP VIEW · NOT TO SCALE
- Top speed
- Mach 3.2+
- Ceiling
- 85,000 ft
- First flight
- Dec 22, 1964
// live ops
Projects in stealth.
// open a channel
The lab is quiet. The builder isn't.
Five letters. No numbers. Registered back when that was still possible.