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Stumbled on this yesterday while searching on Ben Kelsey. This article had to be written by the most gullible Kelsey fanboy (related to Bodie?) while recording the reminisces of Kelsey in advanced dementia.
Subtitle should have been "everyone loves a winner - and wants max credit for zero contribution'
The Gathering of P-51 Mustangs and Legends, Sept 27-30, 2007, Columbus, Ohio, Rickenbacker Field
The Gathering of P-51 Mustangs and legend pilots of aviation history, September 27-30, 2007 at Rickenbacker Field, Columbus, Ohio. Celebrate P-51 Mustangs 65th birthday with 100 Mustangs, aviation legends and thousands of veteran fighter groups, bomber and ground crews from all over the worldweb.archive.org
Simply stated - YES, that is what I am saying.Sorry, I don't quite follow your banter...
Are you saying that Ben Kelsey, the head of Wright Field's fighter development program, had nothing to do with the introduction of the AAF's A-36/P-51?
Doesn't sound like the same Ben Kelsey that I knew...
Cheers,
Dana
There was so much wrong with both articles. The most glaring error was stating that Kelsey saw the promise of NA-73/XP51 as superior to the P-40 early - but AAF somehow failed to recognize his genius and a.) cause Mustang I to be delivered to US in return for new production P-40E/F, b.) execute NA-83 and 91 as US 'AC contracts' not Defense Aid (DA-140). An accompanying error is that if Kelsey/MC had any influence on development of NA-91, the 20mm cannon would NOT have been developed as armament. The AAF consistently rejected 20mm cannon for every Mustang variant in which they had design/GFE oversight- while the RAF wanted nothing but 20mm.It seems to be written by different people, the first page has a completely different tone to the last while the second seems to be a conspiracy theory.
The Gathering of P-51 Mustangs and Legends, Sept 27-30, 2007, Columbus, Ohio, Rickenbacker Field
The Gathering of P-51 Mustangs and legend pilots of aviation history, September 27-30, 2007 at Rickenbacker Field, Columbus, Ohio. Celebrate P-51 Mustangs 65th birthday with 100 Mustangs, aviation legends and thousands of veteran fighter groups, bomber and ground crews from all over the worldweb.archive.orgThe Gathering of P-51 Mustangs and Legends, Sept 27-30, 2007, Columbus, Ohio, Rickenbacker Field
The Gathering of P-51 Mustangs and legend pilots of aviation history, September 27-30, 2007 at Rickenbacker Field, Columbus, Ohio. Celebrate P-51 Mustangs 65th birthday with 100 Mustangs, aviation legends and thousands of veteran fighter groups, bomber and ground crews from all over the worldweb.archive.orgThe Gathering of P-51 Mustangs and Legends, Sept 27-30, 2007, Columbus, Ohio, Rickenbacker Field
The Gathering of P-51 Mustangs and legend pilots of aviation history, September 27-30, 2007 at Rickenbacker Field, Columbus, Ohio. Celebrate P-51 Mustangs 65th birthday with 100 Mustangs, aviation legends and thousands of veteran fighter groups, bomber and ground crews from all over the worldweb.archive.org
Hi Greg - I am not attacking Kelsey and agree your points - especially about the knowledge of the guy writing the article.Almost everything I have read about Ben Kelsey has to do with the P-38. It's development was fraught with solving problems that were simple in the end but not easy to investigate in most cases. It's like finding a short circuit in your car. Fixing it is easy once you find the short; the problem is finding the short to begin with. And neither he nor anyone else ever "fixed" the low critical Mach number problem, though the dive brakes DID help a lot with making it much less dangerous, when they were fitted.
I would congratulate him is successfully putting down the XP-38 on a golf course, though. It was amazing he survived it, at least to me. Tony LeVier was quite angry at Kelsey for that, calling the accident totally unnecessary. He might have been right, but I wasn't there to know and have no opinion other than wanting to have had the opportunity to chip over a P-38 for par because I could then claim the feat going forward. Not many can make that claim ...
I have seen things that link Kelsey with the P-51 airfoil, and Wiki indicates he was instrumental in ordering 500 A36's (to keep production lines open) and in flying combat missions to get familiar with the A-36 / P-51. He seems to also be credited with expediting the opinions of front-line P-51 pilots back to North American to shorten the modification process, at least in Wiki. How true this might be is not something I can debate at this time. Anyone can write almost anything in Wiki, so seeing something in Wiki has a random relationship to facts. Wiki is the worst source in the world except for no source.
It's seems more like the guy writing the article didn't really know much about Kelsey's career, and is crediting Kelsey with more than he really did for the P-51 effort by reading between the lines, somewhat incorrectly. Perhaps I am missing something and there is a personal agenda in there?
I am pretty sure that had Ben Kelsey been assigned to the P-51 project in the same capacity he was for the P-38, he would have pursued it with the same dedication he used for the P-38. But, that's a "what if" since he didn't have the same assignment with the P-51 that he had for the P-38. I have also not seen anything that makes me think less of Kelsey as a pilot or person.
You can add the Hawker Tornado to that list. You gotta feel for the people at Curtiss, in addition to handing over all the information on a design they didnt get to work, they were also forced to receive $56,000 from the people who were doing their R&D for them.Kelsey had zero influence on the negotiations or actions by NAA to acquire Curtis P-40 ad XP-46 data That was solely the decision of Sir Harry Self to make sure that NAA had additional info which might be available to avoid common Meredith Effect design mistakes to date (Hurricane, Bf 109, Spitfire, XP-46).