Seventy Years and Still Counting

Such Was Life At The Ranch. It Was Situated On Groom Lake Nearly 100 Miles Northwest Of “Lost Wages” Nevada. In The Early Sixties I Arrived There As Hamilton Standard’S Engineering Representative Covering Our Products On The Top-Secret Plane The A-12. The Plane Was Designed Built And Concealed By Kelly Johnson And His Team Of Top Aerospace Engineers At A Facility Inside Lockheed. Kelly Named The Building The “Skunk Works.” To Test Fly The Airplane They Needed A Large Secure Site. That Was Where I Ran Into John Gardner. I Later Discovered That John Was Kelly’S Thermodynamics And Heat Transfer Expert. Very Few Hamilton Standard Personnel Were Cleared For The Program And Those Were Sworn To Absolute Secrecy...