Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed

This definitive history of America’s high-stakes race to command the skies unfolds with the urgency of a technothriller—only the technology is real. Skunk Works traces the development of some of the most groundbreaking aircraft ever built, from the U-2 spy plane to the revolutionary Stealth fighter, revealing the inner workings of the nation’s most secret and successful aerospace division.

Told by Ben Rich, who led the Skunk Works for nearly twenty years, this narrative captures the tension of Cold War standoffs, the precision of Gulf War air operations, and the extraordinary engineering breakthroughs achieved under immense pressure. Rich offers vivid, first-hand portraits of the visionary scientists, engineers, and pilots whose ingenuity defined a new era of aviation.

Enriched with gripping personal accounts—from CIA operatives to Air Force pilots undertaking highly classified missions—this is a compelling chronicle of innovation, risk, and human determination. A landmark portrait of twentieth-century aerospace triumphs, it is, as the Los Angeles Times Book Review noted, “thoroughly engrossing.”