Talk:Benjamin S. Kelsey

Kelsey scrapbooks
Apparently, two scrapbooks of Kelsey's are archived at the National Air and Space Museum. One is of aviation news in the 1920s near his boyhood home and the other is of his career. Here's the listing at NASM Archives. Binksternet (talk) 23:34, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Well done.
An article for Kelsey is long overdue. That you have written it solo and in a short space of time is impressive. I usually can find something to tweak but I can't here. Cheers!--Phyllis1753 (talk) 22:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much! As complete as the article seems at first glance, I sense that there are some significant things he did that are yet missing. I've got the local university library digging their copy of his book out of storage for me; once I get that, I'll have some more material to add here.


 * There's a great photo of Kelsey reminiscing with Kelly Johnson and Tony LeVier in front of a P-38 in 1977, but it's copyrighted. :( I'd love to use it here, but no dice. Binksternet (talk) 23:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I think I've seen the photo. Even though my aviation library got mostly trashed a few years ago (I had that Bodie P-38 book), my Wings/Airpower collection escaped damage. The photo (or one like it) is in one of the magazines. I met LeVier once, 25 years ago, at a lecture at NASM and he autographed my copy of "Pilot". That I still have, too. Cheers!--Phyllis1753 (talk) 00:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Ni-i-ice. That's a keeper! Binksternet (talk) 03:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Magazines
Stuff I have not found yet:
 * Aviation Quarterly, volume 7, number 1, 1981. Jeff Ethell writes a memorial biography about the late Kelsey, "from the Jenny to the X15."
 * Soaring, September 1974. Safety Corner, page 40. "Hilltop Approaches in Strong Winds", Benjamin S. Kelsey.
 * Over The Front, volume 8, number 2, 1993. "The Real SPAD", Benjamin S. Kelsey.
 * Look, volume 19, June 14, 1955. In an article about experimental aircraft, Kelsey is quoted as saying that VTOL development is important because jet fighters need long runways which are vulnerable to enemy strike.
 * A university about 90 mins away from me lists at their Engineering library the issue with Jeff Ethell's tribute. The other two, I have no clue where to look. Binksternet (talk) 03:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Added Look. Binksternet (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, there is a "National Museum of Soaring" (don't know the exact name) in Elmira, NY. "Over the Front", was a magazine devoted to WW I aviation. I don't know if it's still published. Do you have connections with the American Aviation Historical Society? If any group would have a clue, they would. Cheers. --Phyllis1753 (talk) 12:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Ultra Sabre
I went 'round and 'round with BillCJ and Bzuk over nomenclature last April. If you want to revert, help yourself. Cheers.--Phyllis1753 (talk) 14:53, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Spitfire ferrying
''in April, 1941 the RAF sent two Spitfire Mark V fighters to Dayton for testing. The variant used a pressurized cockpit for high-altitude pilot comfort—the pilot would not have to wear an oxygen mask''

This Mark of Spitfire wasn't pressurised, and even those Spitfire HF's and high-altitude Spitfire Photo-Reconnaissance (PRU) types with a pressure cabin, still required the pilot to wear an oxygen mask.

His (Benjamin S. Kelsey's) opinion isn't worth anything, as he never had to fly for his life in one. That was one of the Spitfire's strong points, and the main reason for its existence. It wasn't designed for long distance flights, it was designed for air combat above all else. That was why it was so loved by its pilots. Most of the aircraft he preferred couldn't even survive against the German opposition, at least when Germany still had the fuel and the properly-trained pilots. The Spitfire was a first-rate piston engined combat aeroplane at the start of the war, and it was still one in 1945 when the war ended.

Flying an aircraft on long distance flights is a world away from aerial combat, where an angry foreign gentleman in a first-rate combat aeroplane is doing his best to kill you. In these circumstances, in a second-rate aircraft, the loser ends up walking home, or dead.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.248.103 (talk) 22:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The Spitfire variants article mentions that two Mk VAs were sent to Dayton, Ohio for testing by NACA. One of these is what Kelsey flew. Kelsey's opinion was the opinion of the one man who decided which fighters were to be developed for the USAAC. Binksternet (talk) 14:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The Spitfire V wasn't pressurised, though. Only the Mk VI and Mk VII fighters and the PR X and PR XIX (photo-reconnaissance variants of the Mk IX and Mk XIV fighters) were pressurised. So the article's wrong. And Kelsey's opinion of the Spitfire's range is no doubt correct in terms of US procurement, but fairly irrelevant because the Spitfire was a European aircraft designed as a point-defence interceptor. (The USA has the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on either side and nothing but Canada and Mexico top and bottom, so Americans know no proximate threat and are only interested in imperial expeditionary warfare.) US fighter groups in Italy did use the Spitfire VIII, which had an enhanced range, and were disappointed when they were converted to Mustangs. The Mustang could go further, but it wasn't like flying a Spitfire in terms of agility. You would not want to fight a Spitfire if you'd only got a Mustang. When a US Mustang squadron foolishly and mistakenly attempted to engage an RAF Spitfire XIV squadron over Germany in early 1945, the British pilots (who, unlike their transatlantic cousins, could practise friend-foe aircraft recognition), refused battle and simply went to climb power, leaving the Mustang aggressors far below, because a Mustang could never climb like a Merlin Spitfire, let alone a Griffon Spitfire. Like for like, with essentially the same Merlin engine, the P-51B Mustang was at least a minute slower to 20,000 feet than the Spitfire IX. Climb rate may not have mattered to Americans at the time, but it mattered to European air forces a lot. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

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