John

“Over the years we had developed the concept of using existing hardware developed and paid for by other programs to save time and money and reduce the risks of failures in prototype projects.”
― Ben R. Rich, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed

“Lying sprawled uncouthly at the foot of the Red Dragon where the men had tumbled him down, there was a certain splendor about him still. An old man, an old giant, with bright hairs that shone like gold wires in the gray jut of his beard and the mane of wild hair outflung about his head. I recognized him first by the earl's bracelet twisted about his sword arm, for a spear had taken him between the eyes, but as I looked down more closely into the smashed and blood-pooled face, I recognized the cunning iron-bound mouth, drawn back now in a frozen snarl. I recognized above all, I think the greatness that seemed to cling about him still, an atmosphere of the thing that had made him a giant in more than body; this ancient enemy of Ambrosius's. Hengest, the Jutish adventurer who had grown to be a war lord of the Saxon hordes, lying flung down like a tribute at the foot of the British standard that stirred faintly in the night air above him.

That left the son and the grandson to deal with.

'So-o,' Bedwyr said softly. 'Earl Hengest goes at last to his own Storm Lords again. He should have died on a night of tempest, with the lightning leaping from hill to hill, not on a still summer evening with the scent of hawthorn in the air.'

'He was a royal stag,' I said. 'Thank God he is dead.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, Sword at Sunset

“freedom to take risks—and fail—define the heart of a Skunk Works operation.”
― Ben R. Rich, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed

“There’s no nondestructive test for indestructibility.”
― Randall Munroe, How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems