It is our wish and wille, that this state and this

state and this right in the coming of the thousands.

We can be happy to be that this future

rest of the world.

The world Talking about the air war over Europe now.

There's this massive bombing campaign by the 8th Air Force.

And suddenly, these new wizards, as they were called, appear.

They were jet fighters from Nazi Germany that were 150 miles per hour faster than our fastest fighters.

Kind of your stereotypical technological leap, although we were on the wrong side that time.

That was a cause of great concern for the Army Air Corps leadership because this represented a technology

shift that we had no answer for. Literally would outrun our P-51 Mustang, our P-38 lightning,

and there was really not much we could do about it. The jet fighter we had developed before this was no faster than propeller-powered airplanes,

so it was going to require a different thought mechanism.

And Kelly saw this as an ideal opportunity to apply his experimental shot.

Kelly Johnson had, for a number of years, been designing airplanes that used jet engines. And so he went out and ended

up getting a contract. For the XP80 to design and build this airplane in 180 days.

But when he brought the contract back to Burbank at the time, Lockheed leadership said,

well, congratulations, but we're in the middle of war production.

We cannot disrupt wartime production. We're building B-17s under license of Boeing. We've got P-38s in production and other aircraft. We don't have room for you, so they gave him a circus tent.

So you may have recognized one of these voices as Steve Justice from our last episode.

The other is Renee Passman.

She's a director of several secret programs here at the Skunk Works and took over the position

...