The hopes of California's Lockheed Aircraft Corp. seemed to crash in 1959 with its ill-starred Electra turboprop airliners, which eventually cost $25 million to modify and were largely responsible for driving the company $43 million into the red in 1960. Many wrote Lockheed off after this debacle, but the company had some ideas of its own. In an industry made cautious by military cutbacks, huge development costs and quick obsolescence, it has moved ahead with such exotic projects as the U2, the 2,000-m.p.h. A11 interceptor, and the still-secret RS-71 world-spanning reconnaissance...
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