Denys overholser biography of william shakespeare

Skunkworks- A Salute to a Nerd of Nerds

On an April day in 1975, a 36 year old radar engineer names Denys Overholser entered Ben Rich’s office at the Skunk Works in Burbank California. The Skunk Works was the nickname for the secret Lockheed Advanced Development Projects division and Ben Rich was the new head of this élite Lockheed advanced airplane design and manufacturing team building top secret airplanes for the CIA & Air Force.  As early as 1933, Lockheed built the Electra twin-engine transport contributing to early commercial aviation. The P38 in 1943, the P-80, Americas first fighter jet; the F104 Starfighter, our first supersonic jet attack plane; the U2 spy plane, the SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 surveillance plane and the F-117A stealth fighter were designed a built here initially under the legendary Kelly Johnson and later after Kelly retired, Ben Rich.

This visit of a mid-level engineer to Ben’s office would later be referred to as “the Rosetta Stone breakthrough f