Less known VIPs - Kelly Johnson

CockpitAlpha

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CockpitAlpha
Less known Avaition VIPs - of course except Kelly Johnson.

Great aviators such as Charles Lindberg, Amelia Erhard and Chuck Yeager who dared to push the seemingly impossible boundaries and shape the history of aviation are widely known to us. They broke the sound barriers, crossed oceans with just a simple compass and risking life to prove avaition isn't a male exclusive club. Those undisputed heros are no strangers to most of us and not the subject of my post at this time.

As an aviation junky, sometimes but not very often, I hang around small GA airports to have a burger with a friend and enjoy brief chats with younger pilots about less known great avaitors and contributors to aviation such as Kelly Johnson, Pancho Barnes, Tex Johnston, who performed Barrel Roll maneuver with the Boeing 707 (Dash 80) and Bob Hoover, a US Army Air Force Pilot, civilian pilot with breathtaking air show manuvers.

I dedicate this post first of such to Kelly Johnson and maybe In time, I will try to post about the other avaition less known VIPs as mentioned above.

Kelly Johnson (Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson (1910-1990) was an American aeronautical and systems engineer and designer at Lockheed. Along with Ben Rich (considered father of stealth,) Kelly Johnson established the “Skunk Works” of Lockheed in 1943 in Burbank California.

Creating complex machinery is often product of teamwork but there is always that one individual who leads and pushes the project to reality. Thus, I'm going to use the word “contribution” not to undermine the hard work of many skilled and dedicated professionals working at Skunk Works.

Kelly Johnson contributed to creation of more than 3 dozens aircrafts, most notably; SR-71 (The Blackbird) and I'm sure most of you look at the images of this aircraft with admiration and disbelief how this marvel of technology was created almost 60 years ago, flying at Mach 3.3 a record that still stands for a manned aircraft.

A few years ago, I flew with couple of fellow pilots in a C-340 to Tucson, AZ and visited Pima Air & Space Museum just a few miles from Tucson Airport and there it was, the undisputed champion of all the metal birds, The Black Bird. I couldn't take my eyes off that wonder of human creation and asked myself how something so advanced, even by today's standards could be produced almost 60 years ago.

Kelly Johnson also contributed to the creation of the U-2 spy aircraft with the long and lumbering wings. The ceiling is still classified but the rumors hover between 70.000 to 80.000 ft where one may see the curvature of Earth. A U-2 operated by the CIA and flown by Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet Union in1960. The pilot was released in 1962. Couple of modified U-2s are still operated by by the NASA for atmospheric studies.

Who could ever argue about the beauty of the sexy P-38 Lightening, 400MPH. Also contributed to Kelly Johnson teamwork with the Skunk Works. P-38 was the champion of skies during WWII in Pacific Theater of Operation. Japanese would call it “2 airplanes one pilot" and Germans would give it the name The Double Tail Devil. The Lightening was the primary fighter of the US Army until the Apearance of the famous and beloved King of the Skies P-51 Mustang.

Kelly Johnson also contributed to design and development of the Lockheed Electra 10 with a single veridical stabilizer.The successful changes to Electra earned him the Designer job at Lockheed.

And who could forget the beautiful Super Connie (or Coni) The L-049 Constellation, the cabin pressurized with 4 turbo charged engines, It was designed and produced for the Howard Hughes’ TWA for cross Atlantic flights by Lockheed engineers Kelly Johnson, Hall Hibbard, Willis Hawkins and many other engineers.

Kelly Johnson was born in a small mining town in Michigan to his Swedish parents. He received his first trophy at the age of 13 for designing an airplane. He was bullied in school because of his name Clarence but he later kicked the bully so hard so they never called him a girl again and his name was changed to Kelly.

His autobiography titled ‘Kelly, More Than my Share of it All” was published in 1985. Kelly Johnson left us at age of 80 in1990 in Burbank California. Ben Rich, his longtime friend and coworkers visited him until the last days of his life.

Google and Wikipedia shall be credited for most of the data in this post. But please feel free to correct me if you see any mistakes. I welcome it.

Kelly Johnson was way ahead of his time, he designed aircrafts without sufisicated computers. Just with a sharp pencil, white paper and rulers. He dared to use his God-given human imagination. Just take a closer look the SR-71. Is this out of this earthy world? No, it's the great humanity and the imagination that is being replaced by digits now days, putting the power of our imagination to sleep. Don't get me wrong. I was writing my own computer programs with DOS before Windows and Internet. We need and use computers but it shouldn't put us to sleep, take your head, in sorry, No, I should say, I, as I'm no different. Let's take our eyes from the smart this and smart that and touch our own imagination, visualisation and eventually materialization. Kelly Johnson showed us the power of being a human without all the gadgets.

Last Fall in 2018, we had horrific fires in Southern California, we were without internet, cellphones and even landlines for 2-3 days. We only had food and water, power and radio. It was time to think, read a book, listen to radio. We were back to Kelly Johnson's time. Look and think what he did. Could we do it today? I'm still looking for answers.

Dare to stretch your powerful wings and use your unlimited imaginations.

Tom

Dear Administrator, please feel free to place this post somewhere else at your discretion. Thank you.
 
Last edited:
Correct, and I have it quoted as such in the post:
"Kelly Johnson (Clarence Leonard "Kelly"Johnson)"
 
A good book to read, is called "The Skunk Works" by Ben Rich who succeeded Johnson at the Works. My favorite Johnson quote was on a 60 Minutes program years ago when the rumors of a stealth fighter were circulating. He was asked if the F-117 Stealth fighter was real. Johnson's reply: "if I could talk about it, it would be obsolete."

Here's another link with some Kelly Johnson info: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/27-february-1910/
 
Correct, and I have it quoted as such in the post:
"Kelly Johnson (Clarence Leonard "Kelly"Johnson)"
Hi Tom. His name in my post is simply a link to a brief biography of the man. It wasn't intended as any kind of correction to your post; just interesting additional biographical info. ;)
 
A good book to read, is called "The Skunk Works" by Ben Rich who succeeded Johnson at the Works. My favorite Johnson quote was on a 60 Minutes program years ago when the rumors of a stealth fighter were circulating. He was asked if the F-117 Stealth fighter was real. Johnson's reply: "if I could talk about it, it would be obsolete."

Here's another link with some Kelly Johnson info: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/27-february-1910/
+1000 For this book. Excellent read. You know you're doing something right when you need to design a stealth pole to test your stealth aircraft :) I thought it was cool at how simple the Physicist's test was. Where we actually found the theory is so cool...I always wondered if that was a ruse though. And IIRC, Kelly Johnson did get a rather cool confirmation of the B2 even though his health was poor and he apparently no longer had clearance. I am sure Ben Rich could tell us another generation of wicked cool stuff.
 
+1000 For this book. Excellent read. You know you're doing something right when you need to design a stealth pole to test your stealth aircraft :) I thought it was cool at how simple the Physicist's test was. Where we actually found the theory is so cool...I always wondered if that was a ruse though. And IIRC, Kelly Johnson did get a rather cool confirmation of the B2 even though his health was poor and he apparently no longer had clearance. I am sure Ben Rich could tell us another generation of wicked cool stuff.

Sadly Ben Rich died in 1995 from Cancer. Agree on Rich's book; a very interesting perspective of the program. Amazing how productive they were-- helped to have a well defined enemy, limited bureaucracy, smart people, and a nearly unlimited budget.
 
Hi Tom. His name in my post is simply a link to a brief biography of the man. It wasn't intended as any kind of correction to your post; just interesting additional biographical info. ;)
Thank you Sir for clarification and I'm sorry for my misunderstanding, I thought I misspelled or left out his full name.
He is one my heroes and I shall admit that I didn't know about his book until I wrote this post. I intend to get the book, it must be a great read.
 
A good book to read, is called "The Skunk Works" by Ben Rich who succeeded Johnson at the Works. My favorite Johnson quote was on a 60 Minutes program years ago when the rumors of a stealth fighter were circulating. He was asked if the F-117 Stealth fighter was real. Johnson's reply: "if I could talk about it, it would be obsolete."

Here's another link with some Kelly Johnson info: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/27-february-1910/
Thank you for mention of the book "The Skunk Works" which must be a great read..
And I appreciate the link. As a new member I'm not allowed to have any web links in my first 5 posts. The link you posted is another good source of information about this great man.
 
Thank you for your attention and correction.
It's embarrassing. I'm very sorry. I hope the moderator would let me correct that.

Go back to your original post and click Edit (found down at the bottom left edge of your post), fix the typo then save the edited version.
 
Go back to your original post and click Edit (found down at the bottom left edge of your post), fix the typo then save the edited version.
Thank you so much for your help. It's done but I'm sure I get to correct more.
I should be more careful using Swype on my phone and tablet, it's a great feature but not an excuse for typos.
 
Thank you so much for your help. It's done but I'm sure I get to correct more.
I should be more careful using Swype on my phone and tablet, it's a great feature but not an excuse for typos.
I know for a fact I made fewer typos before all the apps became so helpful ... autocorrect is horrible!
 
I know for a fact I made fewer typos before all the apps became so helpful ... autocorrect is horrible!
Couldn't agree more; horrible and very embarrassing.for the author of the post.
 
Thank you for your attention and correction.
It's embarrassing. I'm very sorry. I hope the moderator would let me correct that.

I'm always correcting stuff I post here. Unfortunately, thoughts tend to spill out of my brain faster than I can make intelligible communication out of them.
 
I’d hardly consider Kelly Johnson “less well known”.

When I think of the less we’ll known aviation VIPs I’d expect a name like Fred Weick, Juan de la Cierva, etc. maybe Charlie Kaman or Joe Sutter.
 
I'm always correcting stuff I post here. Unfortunately, thoughts tend to spill out of my brain faster than I can make intelligible communication out of them.

Actually active brain is rather a fortunate asset. People with more brain activity are less subject to brain diseases. Also, in corporation think-tanks, they ask participants to say the very first think (or thing) that comes to their mind. I am not an expert, but the first thought are from strong instinctive and healthy imagination. Particularly those thoughts that occupy our mind very first thing in the morning when we wake up.

I would say you have an asset in your healthy and active mind that shouldn't be suppressed and let it flow freely.

Kelly Johnson and his friends at the Skunk Works wouldn't have created those unbelievable planes without the free flow of their active mind.
 
I’d hardly consider Kelly Johnson “less well known”.

When I think of the less we’ll known aviation VIPs I’d expect a name like Fred Weick, Juan de la Cierva, etc. maybe Charlie Kaman or Joe Sutter.

Yes, i do agree with you and i should apologize to those who have great knowledge of giants such a Kelly Johnson. As I wrote in the post, in conversations with young pilots, I found vast majority didn't even heard the name. However he is a well know VIP and I try to correct the title without changing my intention for future posts in this series. I will try to write about those names you mentioned after my research. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
 
Hello Administrator,

I believe the last replies to my post have vanished. There was a very educating and important long reply from "Skier" to which I also replied thanking him/her for the post. Could you please look into this? I thought there is a page 2 but apparently I can't find it. Thank you
 
Thanks for a fun-to-read post, @CockpitAlpha!

I’d hardly consider Kelly Johnson “less well known”.

This! Among the aviation crowd, I think people *should* know of Kelly Johnson. I was happy to see the mention of Willis Hawkins in the OP... His grandson is a friend of mine and came to the Gaston's fly-in about a decade ago, and the stories he has about his grandfather are excellent.

When I think of the less we’ll known aviation VIPs I’d expect a name like Fred Weick, Juan de la Cierva, etc. maybe Charlie Kaman or Joe Sutter.

Yep, there ya go. I'm an aviation geek, but I only know one of those (Weick).

A good book to read, is called "The Skunk Works" by Ben Rich who succeeded Johnson at the Works. My favorite Johnson quote was on a 60 Minutes program years ago when the rumors of a stealth fighter were circulating. He was asked if the F-117 Stealth fighter was real. Johnson's reply: "if I could talk about it, it would be obsolete."

Hah! That reminds me of one of the things Will told me. There was a sign on the roof of the Skunk Works building in Burbank that said "If you can read this, you're 25 years behind us!" It was later replaced with a license plate-sized one that said "If you can read THIS, you're 50 years behind us!" :D
 
Thanks for the write-up @CockpitAlpha !!!

I'm fascinated by Kelly Johnson and Skunkworks. They, among others of the time, were simply amazing to me. They churned out cutting edge designs and pioneered technologies that kept us on top through a time of lightning speed advancements in aviation with slide rules and imagination. We have amazing airplanes being created today, but there is just something special about the machines dreamed up and built by the teams during the cold war and the space age.

Thanks again, and don't worry for a second about the typos.

Also, welcome to PoA.
 
Thanks for the write-up @CockpitAlpha !!!

I'm fascinated by Kelly Johnson and Skunkworks. They, among others of the time, were simply amazing to me. They churned out cutting edge designs and pioneered technologies that kept us on top through a time of lightning speed advancements in aviation with slide rules and imagination. We have amazing airplanes being created today, but there is just something special about the machines dreamed up and built by the teams during the cold war and the space age.

Thanks again, and don't worry for a second about the typos.

Also, welcome to PoA.

Thank you for reading my post and welcoming me to this forum.
I read on your T-shirt "Education is impotant...." which is very true and I just used my own imagination to finish that sentence with "....but flying is more fun"
Thank you again for your kind words.
Tom
 
Having been on the USAF Program side of the F-22 and F-117 as well as some other Skunk Works activities, suffice it to say, I have a much higher regard for Mr Johnson than Mr Rich.

Cheers
 
Thank you for your service Sir.

I have known about kelly johnson for many years since a young pilot but nothing about Mr. Rich until I started writing the post. I'm sure you have your valid reasons for your preferences, specially being so close to those aircrafts and I do respect your judgment.

Tom
 
My embarrassment got even worse today and owe you a few more apologies.
The "Clarence L Kelly Johnson" you replied in my post, wasn't clickable on my phone for some unknown reasons.
Today, I was using my tablet and checked out other posts including your link and I could click it. Oh, my goodness, a wealth of information about Kelly Johnson in that link. I was so embarrassed that I could kick myself to have responded in a such stupid manner.
One more time, thank you for the link which will be a great read for me and again sorry for the misunderstanding. You're true gentleman the way you responded to my stupidity. Thank you.
Tom
 
I always enjoyed reading about him. I always like the lines of the p-38 and it’s interesting that the smart mind that designed a “piston twin” also developed the sr-71. I think when compared they have a lot of similar “lines”. His designed transcended generations of airplanes.
 
I always enjoyed reading about him. I always like the lines of the p-38 and it’s interesting that the smart mind that designed a “piston twin” also developed the sr-71. I think when compared they have a lot of similar “lines”. His designed transcended generations of airplanes.
Well said.
And atter so many decades, I still can't get enough of looking at them.
They just don't make them like that anymore.
 
Thank you for reading my post and welcoming me to this forum.
I read on your T-shirt "Education is impotant...." which is very true and I just used my own imagination to finish that sentence with "....but flying is more fun"
Thank you again for your kind words.
Tom

Haha! It actually says "Education is important, but flying is importanter." :biggrin:
 
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