The Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company was established in 1912 by the brothers Allan and Malcolm Loughhead. This company was renamed the Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company and located in Santa Barbara, California.
In 1926, following the failure of Loughead, Allan Loughead formed the Lockheed Aircraft Company (phonetically spelled to avoid confusion) in Hollywood, California. In 1929 Lockheed became a division of Detroit Aircraft.
When Detroit Aircraft went bankrupt during the Great Depression, a group of investors headed by brothers Robert and Courtland Gross bought the company out of receivership in 1932. In 1934 Robert Gross was named chairman of the new company, the Lockheed Corporation, which was headquartered at the Burbank, California, airport. The company remained here for many years before moving to Calabasas, California.
In 1943 Lockheed began, in secrecy, development of a new fighter at its Burbank facility. This site adopts the name the "Skunk Works". In 1954 the first flight of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules took place, the aircraft is still produced in 2005. In 1956 Lockheed received a contract for the development of the Polaris Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), this would be followed by the Poseidon and Trident nuclear missiles. In 1976 the Skunk Works began development of the F-117 Stealth Fighter.
Timeline
1912: The Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company established.
1916: Company renamed Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company.
LockheedAircraftCorporation and Convair Division of General Dynamics were informed of the general requirements, and their designers set to work on the problem without as yet receiving any contract or funds from the government.
Of the early deliveries from Titanium Metals Corporation some 80 percent had to be rejected, and it was not until 1961, when a delegation from headquarters visited the officials of that company, informed them of the objectives and high priority of the OXCART program, and gained their full cooperation, that the supply became consistently satisfactory.
Lockheed accordingly built one of these, and as early as November 1959, transported it in a specially designed trailer truck over hundreds of miles of highway from the Burbank plant to the test area.
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