CockpitAlpha
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- Apr 25, 2019
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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.
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.
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