Inside Skunk Works: Lockheed’s Bet on Vectis

For more than eighty years, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has helped define the cutting edge of American air power. We are live from that storied operation with actually its former leader, OJ Sanchez, who now runs Lockheed Martin's $30,000,000,000 plus aeronautics business. And I think we should start Skunk Works. You you you you led this team, this culture, this place for for for some time, and you still work so closely with them. Where are we? What goes on here? Well, first, welcome to Skunk Works. So I hope your team is enjoying the mystery and the magic that is here. And Skunk Works, as you mentioned, for eighty years, has existed for the purpose of delivering on urgent national security objectives. And so where we are is continuing that mission, which matters to all of us. And in this moment, like we've heard, nations need us to go faster. They need us to be able to bring capabilities to the fight and to deterrence with speed and with an interoperability purpose that only Skunk Works has really delivered on in the past, and so we're excited about what's going on for this. Familiarity with f 35, right, from the American public, the world, a manned fighter. But Vectis is the autonomous craft, the basic idea born out of Skunk Works. How does that work being, you know, an idea to capability deployment? So core to delivering on those security objectives are knowing what our customers need well ahead of time. What we've done... F 35, as you know, was actually invented here in skunk work. It was delivered, and now it's being produced in the bigger aeronautics. Vect is very similar. It comes from a long DNA of drone development that we did starting in the sixties all the way till now. And what it's gonna do On that point, sorry to interrupt. Sure. Of course. In the sixties, there was work on drones. What we now It's a great skunk work story. If you go back and look in the past, like many skunk work stories, The US and The Soviet Union signed a treaty that said, we won't fly manned flights over one another country. Immediately, the CIA came to Skunk Works and said, we need to fly over that country. Out of that was born... Out of that in the sixties was born, the d 21 flew 2,000 miles an hour as a drone in the sixties, and now that heritage we find behind us in the Lockheed Martin Vectis. And so Vectis is bringing together both the ability to design and develop advanced hardware with advanced capabilities in the software and open architecture that's gonna come alongside the f 35 and create the future of air dominance. You know, this is being internally funded Vectis. But is Vectis the next big franchise, the next big aeronautic franchise for the company irrespective of whether there's a human in in in that platform or not? There isn't. Yeah. That's right. So what Vectis represents is us understanding our customers' problems and the challenges that we're gonna see in our dominance and getting ahead of that. We like to say here at Scunk Works, only one miracle per program. And the reality is is that we have to burn down those miracles in order to land at a program like Vectus. So while it appears new to the public, we've been working on the pieces of that. So as far as the franchise goes, we've invested in the technologies that will build this incredible CCA for a long time. And now we're getting out ahead of requirements, listening to the global demand for these, and we see that capability in this lethal, survivable, adaptable airplane that we're building to come alongside the, incredible work that the fifth generation platforms, both the f 22 and the f 35, have proven valuable. How much does a program like that cost? What does it take in dollar terms? Well, I will tell you it takes incredible commitment. And so at Lockheed Martin, we're committed to invest ahead in order to be able to deliver on these solutions. And so while the exact numbers are less important than the commitment, every day Well, you won't disclose them. I appreciate that. Every day, we are we are focused on those things that we think will matter the most and listening to the global need for this capability. We're investing to make sure it's ready. The the reason I asked you about sort of the next truly major aeronautics franchise, if you think about the next generation US aircraft programs, several of them have gone to some of your rivals. Is Vectrus the response to that, or is it... It's in isolation? It is something different to the f 35 program, entirely. So what I see for the future of air dominance is actually not a singular platform. It's about the family of systems and platforms that are gonna be able to connect across domains from space through the air down to the sea to all the shooters. And so Vectrus is not in response to any particular competition. What it is is it's the it's the realization of what's gonna be required to deter, fight, and win in the future. And so I'm... I believe that what you're seeing behind you is where we're going to start adding capability to that family of systems. And programs like the f 35, a lot of people don't realize there's 1,350 f 30 fives out in the world already today. They're in combat. That that fleet is growing at about a 160. US and allies. That fleet is growing at about a 160 a year. When we add the capabilities like Vectrus, we've shown that Vectrus can be controlled by a single f 35 as many as eight. As many as eight Vectrus by a single one. Imagine the mass and scale of a program like that. So, yes, we do see this future family of systems underpinned by the fifth generation airplanes we have and augmented by capabilities like Vectrus. Project Meridian is is the big news item for your industry. In simple terms, secretary Hager is signing a hundred and twenty day effort to do the same thing you've kind of pitched, get ahead of the threats, come with proposals. Elon Musk is involved, and Andrew O'Day is involved. Your your response to it, your interpretation of it, it seems similar to what you you say you're doing. I I love it. I appreciate the leadership that secretary has at looking through project Meridian at the changing nature of warfare, what we should see and learn from conflicts we have, and how we best prepare for the future. So here at Lockheed Martin, we are always in that posture looking ahead. And what project Meridian will do, we talk about that big tent. We, of course... I'm in and out of the Pentagon every week sometimes, and so we work directly with the Department of War as well as the agencies to help envision this. Meridian's gonna help open up that tent to enable others. And here at Skunk Works and across all our Lockheed Martin organizations, if we find something in that, we'll pull that into that bigger tent and then help deliver capabilities for the This is a question I got for you from the Bloomberg Tech audience, the big 10. Let... Let's say there's a close air support mission. Yeah. Vectis is involved. Again, there isn't a set customer production contract yet. But how does that work in real time? So for the everyday person, what are you talking about there? So that's a great question. So as a fifth... I I used to get to fly these airplanes, so I flew the f 22 in the past. And fifth generation airplanes like the f 22 and the f 35 have what's called sensor fusion where you can see the entirety of the battle space right in front of you. And what you're usually limited by is the ability to get others to see it or to be able to have enough weapons or ability to get to every place. What Vectus is gonna do in a situation like that is it's gonna extend that capability, that incredible fusion decision advantage into actionable capabilities, whether that be an air to air mission, an air to ground mission, or a sensing mission. The Vectrus accoutrement to the f 35, f 22, or others is gonna make everybody better and enable that, force of action to happen in a much wider area of responsibility, which is gonna be a tremendous help to the warfighter. Another curious news story, is NASA bringing back the SR 71? Are you gonna help them with that? So the SR 71, for those who don't know, was also invented in the Skunk Works. It was. And if you haven't, seen it in a while, I'd encourage you go look incredible airplane, flew at unbelievable speeds. And, you know, here at Skunk Works, 97% of the portfolio is classified. And so, I would love to see the SR 71 fly again. We'll just have to wait and see what NASA chooses. Well, Bloomberg Tech did a pretty good job being able to get into the building, but I appreciate the classified nature of a lot of what goes on here. It's been fascinating to speak with you.