Since I'm such a great Kelly admirer, I was determined to collect a few of them for the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where I am a long-time very active volunteer. So far the count is up to seven - not too bad! One, the Jetstar Prototype, was also Kelly's personal airplane for 25 years. In January 2010 - we made it Official ! - establishing the Lockheed / Kelly Johnson Collection as a part of the Museum's Collection Plan.
I'm hoping
for a Model 10 Electra some day, which would give us Kelly's first and last
aircraft designs. In any event, we probably have the best Kelly
Johnson collection in existence, anywhere.
Some of Kelly Johnson's Airplane Designs
Model 10A Electra
Hudson Bomber
P-38 Lightning
Constellation
P-80 Shooting Star
F-104 Starfighter
C-130 Hercules (See Note below.)
U-2 Dragon Lady
Jetstar
SR-71 Blackbird
As Kelly said in his autobiography.... "More Than My Share of It All"
It's easy - even for me - to get carried away with love for all things "Kelly." Kelly Johnson worked on about 40-42 airplane designs during his long career, and it's easy to fall into the trap of calling some of those designs "Kelly's airplanes." And so I earlier ascribed the following two airplanes to Kelly.
The P2V Neptune was kicked off at Lockheed subsidiary Vega as a private venture the day before Pearl Harbor, Dec. 6, 1941, and was designed by R.A. Bailey and Lou Height
In the case of the C-130, the paper released by the National Academy of Sciences lists Kelly as holding the Patent ( D-172,969) for the C-130. This is true - I have a copy of the Patent - but in my "due diligence" research, I found Bill Statler and Gene Frost designed the Hercules - an airplane Kelly initially disliked intensely - especially it's lack of sleek looks - but eventually came to love. Kelly's name is on the Patent however......
P2V Neptune
C-130 Hercules
Copyright 2006-2010 Robert A. Bogash. All Rights Reserved
Last revised 20 Dec 2008
4 Apr 2010
30 Nov 2010