Aerospace: No End in Sight

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Lockheed's rare-earth research has uncovered a cathode-sensitive red phosphor that interests makers of color television tubes. One Lockheed division is constructing a $10.5 million dam across Colorado's Fryingpan Creek, another across Oregon's Blue River and is completing a half-mile freeway through the heart of downtown Seattle. Another division builds nuclear reactors in Georgia, has developed an irradiated wood that is much tougher than the hardest hardwood.

Despite all this earthbound branching out, aircraft, almost all of them military, still account for more than half of Lockheed's revenues. Twelve nations now fly Herky Birds. Hercules' successor, the C-141 jet StarLifter, has carried more than half of the 60,000 servicemen flown to Viet Nam since the U.S. buildup began last summer. Lockheed's F-104 fighter has become the NATO standard. Built in six foreign countries and flown by seven more, the F-104 "missile with a man in it" has contributed $800 million to aerospace exports. These have become one of the largest items ($1.4 billion last year) in the U.S. trade surplus, which underpins the value of the dollar.

Last month Lockheed delivered to the Strategic Air Command the first operational SR-71, the world's fastest (2,070 m.p.h.) jet and successor to the famed U2. Flying at three times the speed of sound, the titanium-skinned reconnaissance craft can, from an altitude of 80,000 ft., spy on 60,000 sq. mi. of the earth's surface an hour; with modifications, it can act as the hottest of all combat interceptors.

As for its elephantine C-5A cargo plane—four times the size of today's ungainly Herky Birds, with a tail seven stories high—Lockheed hopes that it will start an upheaval in military strategy, commercial travel and even ocean shipping. One-third faster (550 m.p.h.) than Russia's AN-22, which awed Europe last spring, the C-5A will carry-twice the payload: 50 autos, or six Greyhound buses, or 14 supersonic jet fighters, or 700 combat-ready troops or the largest piece of equipment the Army uses, a 74-ton portable bridge. By 1972, fleets of C-5A's will enable the Pentagon to airlift entire armies with full battle gear anywhere in the world in a few days. Overseas military bases might then be reduced to token strength, since the Army could fight at least small wars abroad without hauling anything by ship except bulk supplies, such as coal or oil. In a civilian version, which Lockheed hopes to have on the market by 1970, the C-5A could carry up to 1,000 passengers, allowing airlines not only to slice the New York-London fare to $75 but to carry air freight cheaply enough (less than 3¢ per ton per mile) to take substantial traffic from railroads and ocean shipping.