Aircraft that could fly higher and faster than anything an adversary could intercept were not just engineering achievements — they were political instruments, intelligence-gathering tools, demonstrations of national capability.

The Soviet Union was watching.

The specific capabilities of American aircraft were not merely competitive secrets in the business sense; they were national security secrets in a more literal sense.

Lockheed’s advanced development work was at the center of this.

The Skunk Works had developed, by the mid-1950s, an approach to advanced aircraft design that combined radical technical innovation with rigorous operational security.

The teams were small.