Is Lockheed Corp. Working On A New Secret Stealth Plane?
Experts cite military need and hidden defense budget. May 20, 1991 By CHIP JACOBS AND TIM DEADY Staff Reporters Lockheed Corp., the defense contractor with a 30-year track record building high-altitude spy planes, could be at work on a new, stealth reconnaissance plane, industry and defense experts said last week. The Calabasas-based company could be developing the plane — tentatively dubbed the “Aurora Project” — at its Skunk Works research had development facilities in Burbank or Palmdale. Experts say the plane is intended to replace Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird, the reconnaissance aircraft retired by the Air Force in 1990 after 24 years of service. The highly secret Aurora program, if it indeed exists, would be funded through the Defense Department’s classified “black budget,” which is hidden from public scrutiny. At stake for Lockheed could be billions of dollars in revenues in revenues and hundreds of Southern California jobs. “There is a high degree of likelihood that Lockheed is d
