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Benjamin Robert Rich (June 18, 1925 – January 5, 1995) was the second director of Lockheed's Skunk Works from 1975 to 1991, succeeding its founder, Kelly Johnson. Regarded as the "father of stealth," Ben Rich was responsible for leading the development of the F-117, the first production stealth aircraft. He also worked on the F-104, U-2, SR-71, A-12, and F-22 among others, many of which are still classified. is the 169th day of the year (170th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... The Lockheed SR-71 was remarkably advanced for its time and remains unsurpassed in many areas of performance. ... A modern Skunk Works project leverages an older: LASRE atop the SR-71 Blackbird. ... Kelly Johnson is the popular name for Clarence Johnson, an aircraft engineer. ... The United States Air Forces F-117A Nighthawk is the worlds first operational aircraft designed to exploit low-observable stealth technology. ... F-117 stealth attack plane Stealth technology is a sub-discipline of electronic countermeasures which covers a range of techniques used with aircraft, ships and missiles, in order to make them less visible (ideally invisible) to radar, infrared and other detection methods. ... The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was the last of the day fighters, a high-performance supersonic interceptor aircraft capable of high speeds and climb rates. ... The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed Dragon Lady, is a single-engine, high-altitude aircraft flown by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency. ... A trainer version of the USAF SR-71. ... The Lockheed YF-12 was a prototype interceptor aircraft that formed the basis for the SR-71 Blackbird. ... F-22 redirects here. ...

Early in life

Rich was born in Manila in the Philippines, one of the five children of British lumber mill superintendent Isidore Rich and his French wife, Annie, the daughter of one of his paternal grandfather's Jewish customers who resided in Alexandria, Egypt. The Rich family was one of the first Jewish families to settle in Manila. Having fled the Philippines just weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they moved to the United States in 1942, where Ben Rich became a naturalized US citizen. He worked (with his father) in a Los Angeles, California machine shop during World War II, and studied at the city's Hamilton High School. After the war he started his college education when he was 21, majoring in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, followed by a master's degree in thermodynamics at UCLA, instead of in the medical field as he originally planned. For other meanings of the word, see Manila (disambiguation). ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... For other meanings of the word, see Manila (disambiguation). ... This article is about the actual attack. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Los Angeles and L.A. redirect here. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Mechanical Engineering is an engineering discipline that involves the application of principles of physics for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. ... Sather Tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ... Thermodynamics (from the Greek θερμη, therme, meaning heat and δυναμις, dynamis, meaning power) is a branch of physics that studies the effects of changes in temperature, pressure, and volume on physical systems at the macroscopic scale by analyzing the collective motion of their particles using statistics. ... The University of California, Los Angeles (generally known as UCLA) is a public research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. ...

Lockheed

Upon graduation Rich was hired by Lockheed as a theromodynamicist. There he worked on a variety of projects - he was awarded a patent for designing a nichrome heating system which prevented Navy patrol plane crew's penises from freezing to their urine elimination pipes. He designed inlet ducts for the F-104 Starfighter, the C-130 transport aircraft, and the F-90 fighter. The Lockheed SR-71 was remarkably advanced for its time and remains unsurpassed in many areas of performance. ... For other uses, see Patent (disambiguation). ... Nichrome is a brand name for a nickel-chromium resistance wire, a non-magnetic alloy of nickel and chromium. ... The penis (plural penises, penes) is an external male sexual organ. ... Lulworth Cove in Dorset, England (Great Britain) A fjord (Lysefjorden) in Norway An inlet is a body of water, usually seawater, which has characteristics of one or more of the following: a bay a cove an estuary a firth a fjord a geo a sea loch a sea lough a... The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was a single-engined, high-performance, supersonic interceptor aircraft that served with the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1958 until 1967. ... The Lockheed C-130 Hercules, a four-engine turboprop aircraft, is the main tactical air transport aircraft of the United States and UK military forces. ... XF-90 The Lockheed XF-90 was built as a long-range penetration fighter and bomber escort, in response to the same U. S. Air Force requirement that produced the XF-88 Voodoo. ...

The Skunk Works

In December 1954 Rich was seconded to the Skunk Works, the secret research and development section run by Lockheed's chief engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. There he designed the inlet ducts for the U-2 spy plane. Then he led the effort to build large-scale hydrogen liquefaction plant for a proposed hydrogen-powered supersonic aircraft, codenamed Suntan. After this was canceled when hydrogen proved to be impractical, Rich was program manager for the propulsion systems for the U-2's successor, the SR-71 Blackbird. The idea to paint the high-speed aircraft's skin black, to help dissipate the tremendous frictional heat, was Rich's. He designed the engine inlet cones, the air conditioning system, and was the chief thermodynamicist for the project. A modern Skunk Works project leverages an older: LASRE atop the SR-71 Blackbird. ... Kelly Johnson participated in the design of the Lockheed L-10 Electra, testing a model of the design in the wind tunnel of the University of Michigan. ... Lulworth Cove in Dorset, England (Great Britain) A fjord (Lysefjorden) in Norway An inlet is a body of water, usually seawater, which has characteristics of one or more of the following: a bay a cove an estuary a firth a fjord a geo a sea loch a sea lough a... The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed Dragon Lady, is a single-engine, high-altitude aircraft flown by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency. ... This article is about the chemistry of hydrogen. ... Suntan was the code-name of a prototype reconnaissance aircraft program, with the goal of creating a much faster and higher-altitude successor to the U-2, enabled by the use of liquid hydrogen as fuel. ... SR-71 redirects here. ...

Later, as Johnson's successor as leader of the Skunk Works, Rich championed the early prototypes of stealth technology and led the development of the F-117 stealth fighter. The use of modern stealth aircraft technology was partially based upon the work of Pyotr Ya. Ufimtsev. Coincidentally, Pyotr Ya. Ufimtsev is currently teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the same school that Ben Rich studied at for his graduate degree. Kelly Johnson participated in the design of the Lockheed L-10 Electra, testing a model of the design in the wind tunnel of the University of Michigan. ... A modern Skunk Works project leverages an older: LASRE atop the SR-71 Blackbird. ... The United States Air Forces F-117A Nighthawk is the worlds first operational aircraft designed to exploit low-observable stealth technology. ... An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ... An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ... Binomial name Ucla xenogrammus Holleman, 1993 The largemouth triplefin, Ucla xenogrammus, is a fish of the family Tripterygiidae and only member of the genus Ucla, found in the Pacific Ocean from Viet Nam, the Philippines, Palau and the Caroline Islands to Papua New Guinea, Australia (including Christmas Island), and the...

Awards

A member of the National Academy of Engineering, he won numerous awards during his career, including the Collier Trophy. In 2005 he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Founded in 1964, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in the United States provides engineering leadership in service to the nation. ... The Collier Trophy is the most prestigious award in the aviation field, given once a year to those that have made the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been... The National Aviation Hall of Fame is located at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, east Dayton, Ohio. ...

Family

In 1950, he married the former Faye Mayer, a fashion model, who died in 1980. In 1982, he married Hilda Elliot. He died of cancer in Ventura, California, on January 5, 1995. His son, Michael, is an executive with the RAND Corporation and his daughter, Karen, is a botanist. Coordinates: , Country State County Ventura Government  - Mayor Christy Weir  - Senate Tom McClintock (R)  - Assembly Pedro Nava (D)  - U. S. Congress Lois Capps (D) Area  - Total 32. ... is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Michael Rich is Executive Vice President of the RAND Corporation, the institutions second-ranking position. ... Alternate meanings: See RAND (disambiguation) The RAND Corporation is an American think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the U.S. military. ...

Selected Aircraft

• F-104 Single-engine, high-performance, supersonic interceptor aircraft.
• F-90 Experimental fighter / bomber escort aircraft.
• U-2 Reconnaissance aircraft. A high altitude jet aircraft used by the CIA and the US Air Force during the cold war.

• SR-71 SR-71 "Blackbird". An advanced, long-range, Mach 3.2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft. The Blackbird was designed to provide reconnaissance in defended airspace while improving aircrew survivability. In the blackbird, mission success and survivability depended on aircraft speed. Ben Rich was responsible for engineering the spikes and engine inlet systems which made the Blackbirds the fastest jet aircraft in the world.

• F-117 The Nighthawk, world's first production stealth aircraft.
• YF-22 Prototype of F-22 Raptor.

The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was the last of the day fighters, a high-performance supersonic interceptor aircraft capable of high speeds and climb rates. ... XF-90 The Lockheed XF-90 was built as a long-range penetration fighter and bomber escort, in response to the same U. S. Air Force requirement that produced the XF-88 Voodoo. ... The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed Dragon Lady, is a single-engine, high-altitude aircraft flown by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency. ... The Lockheed SR-71, unofficially known as the Blackbird, is a long-range, advanced, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft by Lockheeds Skunk works, which was also responsible for the U-2 and many other advanced aircraft. ... The United States Air Forces F-117A Nighthawk is the worlds first operational aircraft designed to exploit low-observable stealth technology. ... For information about the video game of the same name, see F-22 Raptor (game). ...

References

• Rich, Ben; Janos, Leo. (1996) Skunk Works. Little, Brown & Company, ISBN 0-316-74300-3
• F-117a.com biography of Ben Rich
• Rich's biography in the National Aviation Hall of Fame