Clarence L."Kelly" Johnson

Kelly Johnson, I am sure that this name doesn't mean very much to most people unless you happen to know someone with the same name, but this is not true in the aviation industry. Perhaps Kelly Johnson was the greatest aeronautical engineer that has ever lived. Kelly was born Clarence L. Johnson, on November 27, 1910 and he died on December 21, 1990. He had a Science degree from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He was a man of many talents He was so talented that even while he was in college he was consulted about the designs of Indianapolis race cars. Apparently the owners wanted his input on making them more aerodynamic.

When Kelly got out of college with his Master's degree he had no problem getting a job. He was hired by Lockheed as a tool designer in 1933. He had tried to get a job in 1932 with Lockheed without a Master's degree but was turned down. In only five years with the company, he had worked himself up from tool designer to Chief Research Engineer. Quite an accomplishment for this young man. Here he was, the Chief Research Engineer of a huge aircraft company and war clouds were looming in Europe. The US military had decided to disregard the development of jet planes and thought that the Germans were very foolish in pursuing this matter. It would only take a few year for them to realize what fools they had been.

P-28

It is probably true that Kelly Johnson will always be remembered as the man that designed the SR71 Blackbird aircraft. What made this plane so unique was that not only was it the fastest plane ever built, not only the fact that as you few it and the skin heated up it got stronger, not only the fact that it was the fastest plane made until it was retired, but the fact that the technology to build it didn't exist and had to be invented as the designing took place. Can you imagine having to invent materials as you went along with your design? This is why there are many people out there that believe that alien technology was used in building this aircraft. But this was just one of the many aircraft that Johnson built in his career. Johnson had said of the SR71 project, "It makes no sense to just take this one or two steps ahead, because we'd be buying only a couple of years before the Russians would be able to nail us again. No, I want us to come up with an airplane that can rule the skies for a decade or more." Well it certainly did.

Johnson had designed one of the best allied fighter planes of World War II. It was the P-38 Lightning and it could fly over 400 mph while being one of the most maneuverable planes in the sky. The war department came to him and told him they wanted a plane that would do at least 600 mph. Kelly got a huge tent, set it up at Lockheed and filled it with engineers and mechanics and in only 143 days built our first jet plane the P-80 Shooting Star. This area was named the Skunk Works, actually Skonk Works after the L'il Abner Cartoon strip. Many more famous planes were to come from this top secret area. This plane became the F-80 and over 9,000 were built and used in Korea. But some of the projects he would work on never succeeded. Not every project resulted in a great new plane. But Kelly more than made up for these failures with planes like the U-2 spy plane, the F-104 Starfighter and the F-117A. Other planes that Johnson built were the XF-90 interceptor, X-7 test vehicle (it was a ram jet), T-33 Trainer jet, F-94, C-140 and the YF-12. But there were planes that he helped with too. There was the Orion 9D, Electra, XC-35, Super Electra, Lodestar, B-37 bomber, PV-1 Ventura bomber, P2V Neptune, Constellations and C-130., just to mention some.

SR71 Blackbird

Some people say of certain artists that they were prolific. Well Kelly Johnson was a prolific designer. He may never be outdone in his aeronautical accomplishments. He was a sort of SR71 of engineers.

When Kelly retired in 1975 he was the senior Vice President of Lockheed. He had received over 50 awards for his unique aircraft designs. In 1965 Kelly Johnson was inducted into the International Aerospace Hall of Fame.