What Did Kelly Johnson Do First at Lockheed?

David Senra says Kelly Johnson's first act at Lockheed was to tell the two lead designers that their plane was unstable.

He drove across the country for a job at a tiny Lockheed in dire financial straits. A small group of aviation enthusiasts had just purchased the company from receivers for $40,000 while it was being reorganized. Lockheed was already known for fast plywood aircraft, wooden planes, and there were no engineering jobs. The chief engineer told him to go back to school and return the next year. Kelly Johnson spent a year of graduate study at the University of Michigan. Time in the wind tunnel mattered, and Lockheed hired him in 1933. Engineering still had no openings, so he started in tool design. He announced that the new airplane, the first designed by the reorganized company and the one its hopes for the future were based on, was not a good design and was actually unstable. The designers were somewhat shaken. He called the move presumptuous, criticizing his professors and experienced designers at the start of a job.

Hibbard, a fine engineer with a degree in aeronautics from MIT, had wanted new young blood fresh out of school in the engineering department. Kelly Johnson looked so young that Hibbard was almost afraid he could not read or write. When Kelly Johnson said the airplane just sent in was no good and unstable in all directions, Hibbard was taken aback and was not sure they should have hired him. Then he thought better of it.