by James L.
I retired from Lockheed at the end of 1989
after 14 years working in the Advanced Systems Division in Sunnyvale as a
safety engineer. Before 1976, I worked at Martin Marietta for 19 years,
starting in 1956.
I started at Martin on the P6M SeaMaster
program as a flight test engineer. This was an awesome airplane. Martin was a
well-respected builder of seaplanes (PBM, P5M), both during and after World War II.
The P6M was a four-jet engine seaplane that could fly at Mach 0.97 (as I
remember) at sea level, dropping three “strings” of mines, on three different
courses, all automatically. But as it today, money was a problem, and
the major competition for Navy funding was the Lockheed Trident program. The
Navy’s decision was to scrap the SeaMaster program and go with the submarine
Trident program.
Other programs I worked on at Martin were
direct energy conversion of nuclear power to electricity, initial design and
feasibility testing of airplane collision avoidance systems for the FAA and
Skylab (three men in orbit for 50-plus days, about 1974). At
Lockheed, I was involved in the Army Aquila program (early RPV reconnaissance
airplane), including Navy programs and HOE.
Diversity of programs was strong in both
companies, and these two great companies have merged into one of the major
defense contractors in the world.
