With close technical analysis from Bill Gunston and artist Mike Badrocke's meticulous cutaway drawings, presented to the best effect on fold-out pages, this volume tells the full story of the most innovative aircraft company in the world.

Treasure trove of cutaway views of 1940s aircraft features magazine art that focuses on American models. The extensive notes and explanations also include details on select British and German planes.

This classic history of America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies is "a gripping technothriller in which the technology is real" (New York Times Book Review). From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds. Here are up-close portraits of the maverick band of scientists and engineers who made the Skunk Works so renowned. Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from Air Force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the twentieth century. "Thoroughly engrossing." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

Explores the many factors that led Lockheed from near bankruptcy in the 1930s to become one of the most successful and innovative aerospace corporations in the world