Kelly Johnson
Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson (1910–1990) was an American aeronautical and systems engineer who founded and served as the first director of Lockheed's Advanced Development Programs, better known as Skunk Works. Johnson is widely regarded as one of the most talented and prolific aircraft designers in aviation history, responsible for the P-38 Lightning, the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-104 Starfighter, among many other aircraft.
| Role | Founder and first director of Lockheed Skunk Works |
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In the context of the TR-3B, when Edgar Fouché asked his source whether Kelly Johnson had been the senior project designer for the craft, the source responded that it would have been Ben Rich — Johnson's successor as director of Skunk Works from 1975 to 1991. Two of the four engineers who described the XF-131 Super Sentinel to Bill McDonald claimed to have worked for Rich at Skunk Works in Glendale, California, operating the radar cross-section range at Helendale.