This is an edited transcript of an oral history interview of Alan Brown conducted by Peter J. Westwick. Topics covered in the interview include: Cranfield University and British aeronautical engineering; security clearances and classification at Lockheed; the relationship between aircraft and space business; use of computers and programs to model supersonic reentry physics, sonic booms ; relation of research and analysis to design and production engineering ; context of the Vietnam War and the 1960s ; the L-1011: liaison to Rolls-Royce; sales to airlines; relation between finance and engineering ; Stealth aircraft: Harvey; the SR-71; effects of secrecy and compartmentalization; relation between aerodynamicists and electromagnetics theorists; role of geometry and materials; engine inlet design; competition with Northrop and DARPA’s criteria for selecting the winner; Skunk Works culture; Lockheed’s entry in the B-2 competition; manufacturing engineering; public announcement of Stealth ; consultant for Bill Lear; Budweiser hydroplanes. Alan Brown was born in England in 1929 and raised in Newcastle-on-Tyne. After high school he served an apprenticeship at Blackburn Aircraft for five years, then attended Cranfield University, receiving the equivalent of a master’s degree in engineering in 1952, at age 22. He worked for Bristol Aeroplane for four years before coming to the U.S. to work at USC as a specialist in supersonic propulsion aerodynamics. After two years at USC, and two years in a small aerospace consulting startup in Pasadena with Tom Wiancko, he joined Lockheed Missiles and Space in 1960, working in their gas dynamics lab in Palo Alto on the chemistry and physics of reentry vehicles for the Polaris system. In 1966 he moved to Lockheed in Burbank, working first on the supersonic transport, then on the L-1011, and finally, after 1972, on the P-3 and its derivatives. In 1975 he joined the Stealth program in Lockheed Skunk Works, working initially on engine inlet design, eventually becoming F-117 program manager. In the early 1980s he was appointed to manage Lockheed’s stealth technology division, including the stealth ship. In 1989 he was named Lockheed’s corporate director of engineering; he retired from Lockheed in 1992. [Object file name], Aerospace Oral History Project, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
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