In 1953, Kelly Johnson sketched a jet-powered glider in a Burbank Lockheed office. Borrowing the F-104's fuselage and mating it to sailplane wings, his Skunk Works team delivered the impossible: an aircraft that could cruise above 70,000 feet with a 3,000-mile range. The CIA, not the Air Force, became the first customer, and Johnson promised 20 airframes in eight months—delivering the first in nine. On August 1, 1955, Tony LeVier accidentally lifted off during a high-speed taxi test at Groom Lake. Bicycle-style retractable landing gear with wing-mounted pogos dropped on takeoff, no guns, normally unescorted—just altitude, cameras, and audacity. The Dragon Lady remains in service today, a testament to Johnson's audacious engineering.