The Impossible Factory: The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Skunk Works, America's Innovation Machine

by Josh Dean

496 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication May 19, 2026

About the author

Josh Dean is a New York based journalist whose work has appeared in Popular Science, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, GQ, Men's Journal, Rolling Stone, Inc., Fast Company, ESPN the Magazine, and many others, covering subjects as diverse as pee wee go-kart racing, snowboarding in Iran, the byzantine world of small production watchmakers, and a start-up nuclear fission company. He is a correspondent for Outside, a former deputy editor of Men's Journal, and one of the founding editors of PLAY, the New York Times Sports Magazine, where he had the great fortune to work with David Foster Wallace on the late writer's classic Roger Federer profile/essay. Josh is almost certainly the first person in history to play in both the WEPA Elephant Polo World Championships and the Quidditch World Cup. (Sadly, his teams won neither.) He is the author of SHOW DOG: The Charmed Life and Trying Times of a Near-Perfect Purebred, an extremely real and yet still unbelievable trip inside the world of dog shows, and THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE STOPWATCH GANG, about Canada's infamous and prolific 1970s gang of bank robbers. His latest book, THE TAKING OF K-129, tells the incredible story of Project Azorian, the largest and most audacious covert operation in CIA history. He lives in Brooklyn (and sometimes in the Catskills) with his wife and two sons.

Reviews

[ROLLAND Florence · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible book, narrating the larger than life story of Kelly Johnson and Skunk Works - the Lockheed division that designed and produced fighter jets during the cold war.

John Dean definitely put in a lot of work. The Impossible factory is extremely documented, digging into the details of engineering and producing those mythical airplanes.

You will especially love the book if you are an engineer, a project manager, or an airplane nerd (or all three). I personally loved learning about all the problem solving that goes into designing, testing and producing airplanes as a defense contractor.

For instance, flying at an extremely high altitude requires a different type of fuel, which had to be especially engineered by Shell. Pilots needed special suits to make sure their blood would not (literally) boil. And of course, fighting the bureaucracy in order to deliver those exceptional airplanes in due time required political and managerial skills that were ahead of the time.

All in all, a fascinating book, written by a passionate author who really tried to understand aerospace engineering. I regret not having access to the (now declassified) blueprints and manuals, but the book ends with a promise to set up a website in order to share the sources.

Thank you so much NetGalley, Dutton and of course Josh Dean for sending me an ARC of this book. I learned a lot and cried a bit. So long, Kelly Johnson.

[William Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was delighted to receive an ARC of Josh Dean's upcoming text entitled "The Impossible Factory: The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Skunk Works, America's Innovation Machine" being published by Dutton. The book is an eminently readable examination of one of the most signiificant innovators in an industry, aviation, that thrives on innovation. The book looks at the extremely significant achievements of Kelly Johnson and Lockheed in terms of weapons procurement. corporate management, and the evolution of the modern aircraft industry through the prism of one extraordinary engineer's insistence on "there has to be a better way." Kelly Johnson may be the single most important innovator in the science of aviation technology in the twentieth century. From the early years and the first big government pushes into the evolving aviation industry, through the design and development of many of the best known aircraft of his time, Kelly Johnson left a truly massive legacy. Indeed, the "Skunk Works" has become emblematic of a kind of corporate guerrilla warfare against needlessly bureaucratic management techniques most spectacularly associated with weapons programs and military procurement procedures. There are very important lessons to be learned here related to the relationships between weapons developers and military procurement procedures, critically important in the modern world. From figures like the Wright brothers and Howard Hughes to McNamara and his "whiz kids", there is a colorful and influential cast of characters here. Achievements like the Lockheed Electra and Constellation, not to speak of the Lightning and the U-2 and Blackbird attest to Johnson's vision and determination to get the job done. Anyone interested in aviation or modern management needs to take a look at this.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I requested an ARC for this in the most optimistic was "oo, jets, I don't know as much about jets." Then when it came to read, I was like "what was I thinking? Do I really want to slog through a book about engineering? How will I give a fair review when it's super dull?"

I'm happy to report back it was not a slog. Dean smartly creates a framework of Kelly Johnson so by the time he starts engineering, you know and like him as a person and are ready to go along. I won't lie, there is engineering in the book but it is softened with the people who do it so this aviation history nerd who never passed pre cal much less physics could understand. He keeps Kelly the person in the forefront of the story,

He really sells Johnson and the Skunk works and makes you root for them. It is definitely great hero-centered storytelling. And you feel bad when business slows down. But why- this is the center of the military industrial complex and why the country spends so much on defense. Skunk Works has this huge fancy building employing thousands and engineers- but that means they need work.

So I was torn- loving and rooting for Skunk Works but knowing what it created. And the nature of the beast of this topic and Dean tried to address it a bit towards the end. The book was good and well-written. I really liked Kelly Johnson throughout. As a pre-jet historian, I normally skip past the jets when I go to the Smithsonian but now I will stop and appreciate it.

It took me a long time to read because I had to stop for book club and library books a few times. It's not a reflection of my interest in the book.

ATY prompt: A book with a main character who is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, or a criminal