Ben Rich
Encyclopedia
Benjamin Robert Rich was the second director of Lockheed
's Skunk Works
from 1975 to 1991, succeeding its founder, Kelly Johnson
. Regarded as the "father of stealth," Ben Rich was responsible for leading the development of the F-117, the first production stealth
aircraft. He also worked on the F-104, U-2
, SR-71, A-12, and F-22
among others.
in the Philippines
, one of the five children of British
lumber mill superintendent Isidore Rich and his French wife, Annie, the daughter of one of his paternal grandfather's Jewish customers who resided in Alexandria, Egypt. The Rich family was one of the first Jewish families to settle in Manila
. Having fled the Philippines
just weeks before the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor
, they moved to the United States
in 1942, where Ben Rich became a naturalized US citizen. He worked (with his father) in a Los Angeles, California
machine shop during World War II
, and studied at the city's Hamilton High School. After the war he started his college education when he was 21, majoring in mechanical engineering
at UC Berkeley
, followed by a master's degree in aeronautical engineering at UCLA
, instead of in the medical field as he originally planned.
as a thermodynamicist. There he worked on a variety of projects - he was awarded a patent
for designing a nichrome
heating system which prevented Navy patrol plane crew's penises from freezing to their urine elimination pipes. He designed inlet
ducts for the F-104 Starfighter
, the C-130 transport aircraft, and the F-90
fighter.
, the secret research and development section run by Lockheed's chief engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson
. There he designed the inlet
ducts for the U-2
spy plane. Then he led the effort to build large-scale hydrogen
liquefaction plant for a proposed hydrogen-powered supersonic aircraft, codenamed Suntan. After this was canceled when hydrogen proved to be impractical, Rich was program manager for the propulsion systems for the U-2's successor, the SR-71 Blackbird
. The idea to paint the high-speed aircraft's skin black, to help dissipate the tremendous frictional heat, was Rich's. He designed the engine inlet cones, the air conditioning system, and was the chief thermodynamicist for the project.
Later, as Johnson
's successor as leader of the Skunk Works
, Rich championed the early prototypes of stealth technology
and led the development of the F-117 stealth fighter.
, he won numerous awards during his career, including the Collier Trophy
. In 2005 he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame
.
, on January 5, 1995. His son, Michael
, is an executive with the RAND Corporation and his daughter, Karen, is a botanist.
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
's Skunk Works
Skunk works
Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs , formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. Skunk Works is responsible for a number of famous aircraft designs, including the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 Nighthawk, and the F-22 Raptor...
from 1975 to 1991, succeeding its founder, Kelly Johnson
Clarence Johnson
Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson was an aircraft engineer and aeronautical innovator. As a member and first team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works, Johnson worked for more than four decades and is said to have been an "organizing genius"...
. Regarded as the "father of stealth," Ben Rich was responsible for leading the development of the F-117, the first production stealth
Stealth technology
Stealth technology also termed LO technology is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive electronic countermeasures, which cover a range of techniques used with personnel, aircraft, ships, submarines, and missiles, to make them less visible to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection...
aircraft. He also worked on the F-104, U-2
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...
, SR-71, A-12, and F-22
F-22 Raptor
The Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is a single-seat, twin-engine fifth-generation supermaneuverable fighter aircraft that uses stealth technology. It was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities that include ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals...
among others.
Early in life
Rich was born in ManilaManila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, one of the five children of British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
lumber mill superintendent Isidore Rich and his French wife, Annie, the daughter of one of his paternal grandfather's Jewish customers who resided in Alexandria, Egypt. The Rich family was one of the first Jewish families to settle in Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
. Having fled the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
just weeks before the Japanese
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
, they moved to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1942, where Ben Rich became a naturalized US citizen. He worked (with his father) in a Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
machine shop during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and studied at the city's Hamilton High School. After the war he started his college education when he was 21, majoring in mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
at UC Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, followed by a master's degree in aeronautical engineering at UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, instead of in the medical field as he originally planned.
Lockheed
Upon graduation Rich was hired by LockheedLockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
as a thermodynamicist. There he worked on a variety of projects - he was awarded a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for designing a nichrome
Nichrome
Nichrome is a non-magnetic alloy of nickel, chromium, and often iron, usually used as a resistance wire. Patented in 1905, it is the oldest documented form of resistance heating alloy. A common alloy is 80% nickel and 20% chromium, by mass, but there are many others to accommodate various...
heating system which prevented Navy patrol plane crew's penises from freezing to their urine elimination pipes. He designed inlet
Inlet
An inlet is a narrow body of water between islands or leading inland from a larger body of water, often leading to an enclosed body of water, such as a sound, bay, lagoon or marsh. In sea coasts an inlet usually refers to the actual connection between a bay and the ocean and is often called an...
ducts for the F-104 Starfighter
F-104 Starfighter
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is a single-engine, high-performance, supersonic interceptor aircraft originally developed for the United States Air Force by Lockheed. One of the Century Series of aircraft, it served with the USAF from 1958 until 1969, and continued with Air National Guard units...
, the C-130 transport aircraft, and the F-90
Lockheed XF-90
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Boyne, Walter J. Beyond the Horizons: The Lockheed Story. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. ISBN 0-31219-237-1....
fighter.
The Skunk Works
In December 1954 Rich was seconded to the Skunk WorksSkunk works
Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs , formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. Skunk Works is responsible for a number of famous aircraft designs, including the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 Nighthawk, and the F-22 Raptor...
, the secret research and development section run by Lockheed's chief engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson
Clarence Johnson
Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson was an aircraft engineer and aeronautical innovator. As a member and first team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works, Johnson worked for more than four decades and is said to have been an "organizing genius"...
. There he designed the inlet
Inlet
An inlet is a narrow body of water between islands or leading inland from a larger body of water, often leading to an enclosed body of water, such as a sound, bay, lagoon or marsh. In sea coasts an inlet usually refers to the actual connection between a bay and the ocean and is often called an...
ducts for the U-2
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...
spy plane. Then he led the effort to build large-scale hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
liquefaction plant for a proposed hydrogen-powered supersonic aircraft, codenamed Suntan. After this was canceled when hydrogen proved to be impractical, Rich was program manager for the propulsion systems for the U-2's successor, the SR-71 Blackbird
SR-71 Blackbird
The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by the Lockheed Skunk Works. Clarence "Kelly" Johnson was responsible for many of the...
. The idea to paint the high-speed aircraft's skin black, to help dissipate the tremendous frictional heat, was Rich's. He designed the engine inlet cones, the air conditioning system, and was the chief thermodynamicist for the project.
Later, as Johnson
Clarence Johnson
Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson was an aircraft engineer and aeronautical innovator. As a member and first team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works, Johnson worked for more than four decades and is said to have been an "organizing genius"...
's successor as leader of the Skunk Works
Skunk works
Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs , formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. Skunk Works is responsible for a number of famous aircraft designs, including the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 Nighthawk, and the F-22 Raptor...
, Rich championed the early prototypes of stealth technology
Stealth technology
Stealth technology also termed LO technology is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive electronic countermeasures, which cover a range of techniques used with personnel, aircraft, ships, submarines, and missiles, to make them less visible to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection...
and led the development of the F-117 stealth fighter.
Awards
A member of the National Academy of EngineeringNational Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
, he won numerous awards during his career, including the Collier Trophy
Collier Trophy
The Collier Trophy is an annual aviation award administered by the U.S. National Aeronautics Association , presented to those who have made "the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space...
. In 2005 he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame
National Aviation Hall of Fame
The American National Aviation Hall of Fame is located at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, east Dayton, Ohio...
.
Family
In 1950, he married the former Faye Mayer, a fashion model, who died in 1980. In 1982, he married Hilda Elliot. He died of cancer in Ventura, CaliforniaVentura, California
Ventura is the county seat of Ventura County, California, United States, incorporated in 1866. The population was 106,433 at the 2010 census, up from 100,916 at the 2000 census. Ventura is accessible via U.S...
, on January 5, 1995. His son, Michael
Michael D. Rich
Michael Rich is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the RAND Corporation, the institution's highest-ranking position, which he has held since November 2011. Mr. Rich became the fifth president and CEO of the Santa Monica, Calif.,-based research institution, succeeding James A. Thomson, who...
, is an executive with the RAND Corporation and his daughter, Karen, is a botanist.
Selected aircraft
- F-104 Starfighter. Single-engine, high-performance, supersonic interceptor aircraft.
- XF-90Lockheed XF-90|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Boyne, Walter J. Beyond the Horizons: The Lockheed Story. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. ISBN 0-31219-237-1....
. Experimental fighter / bomber escort aircraft. - U-2Lockheed U-2The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...
"Dragon Lady". Reconnaissance aircraft. A high altitude jet aircraft used by the CIA and the US Air Force during the cold war. - SR-71 "Blackbird". An advanced, long-range, Mach 3.2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft. The Blackbird was designed to provide reconnaissance in defended airspace while improving aircrew survivability. In the Blackbird, mission success and survivability depended on aircraft speed. Ben Rich was responsible for engineering the spikes and engine inlet systems which made the Blackbirds the fastest jet aircraft in the world.
- F-117 Nighthawk. World's first production stealth aircraft.
- YF-22YF-22The Lockheed/Boeing/General Dynamics YF-22 was a single-seat, twin-engined prototype fighter aircraft designed for the United States Air Force . The YF-22 was a finalist in the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter competition; two prototypes were built. The YF-22 won the contest against the Northrop...
, prototype of the F-22 RaptorF-22 RaptorThe Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is a single-seat, twin-engine fifth-generation supermaneuverable fighter aircraft that uses stealth technology. It was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities that include ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals...
.