Maverick and Skunk Works: Representing Aerospace in Popular Culture

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works was approached in the summer of 2017 by Paramount Studios to provide technical support for the long-awaited second chapter of the movie, Top Gun. In the second installment, Top Gun: Maverick, the story called for a manned hypersonic test aircraft that the lead character, Maverick, would fly and push to its limits, as only Maverick can. This paper describes how the relationship between the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and the Paramount Studios Production Team started, the development of the Darkstar concept, the building of a full-scale mockup for filming, and continued support of the production during script development and filming. Further, and arguably the most important part of this paper, we will discuss the impact of doing a very out-of-the ordinary project (for us) on the Skunk Works team directly responsible for the work, and how very public projects like this can help the Company, and also the industry at large.