KELLY, Raymond D.
Date of death: 29 Sep 2003 Portola Valley, San Mateo County, California
Franklin Daily Journal, October 10, 2003
PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif.
RAYMOND D. KELLY
Raymond D. Kelly, 102, died Sept. 29, 2003, in Portola Valley, Calif., where he was a resident.
He was born Feb. 15, 1901, in Lawrenceburg. His father was Henry Kelly. He was married to Enid (McCaslin) Kelly from 1925 to 1976 and to Elsie (Miller) Kelly from 1978 to 2000. Survivors include two sisters; two children; 12 grandchildren; and 23 great-grandchildren.
He attended Franklin College, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He graduated from Purdue University in 1925 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
He worked as a civilian engineer with the Army Air Corps at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio, from 1925 to 1928. There, he collaborated with Albert Hegenberger and James “Jimmy” Doolittle in tests and demonstrations of flying instruments. He was part of the development team that perfected the electrically heated Pitot tube. He met other famed aviators, including Orville Wright.
He worked in Los Angeles at The American Paulin System Co. through the Great Depression. In 1930, he began working as instrument shop foreman at Boeing Air Transport in Cheyenne, Wyo., which later merged with United Airlines. This began a 37-year career in commercial aviation that continued at United facilities in Chicago, Denver and San Francisco.
His "Paper Jet" study, conducted from 1952 to 1953, helped establish that larger passenger jets could economically out-perform the era’s more popular 50-seat propliners and smaller jets. He completed his career at United in 1967 as director of technical development, based in San Francisco.
He worked part time into the early 1970s with the aviation consulting firm R. Dixon Speas Associates. His last projects focused on the development of prototype supersonic transports for aircraft makers Boeing and Lockheed.
In 1954, he received the Flight Safety Foundation Award by the Society of Automotive Engineers for helping establish the S-7 committee on flight deck and aircraft handling standards. In 1963, he was named as a fellow of both the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Institute of Aerospace Sciences. In 1971, he was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. In 1977, he delivered the sixth annual AIAA/SAE William Littlewood Memorial Lecture.
A 45-minute compilation of his 8mm movies, “44 Years in Aviation, 1931 to 1975,” is held in the archives of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, Wis. Video interviews are on file in the archives of the National Air and Space Museum and United Airlines.
A memorial service for family, friends and colleagues will be conducted Nov. 8 at Franklin College.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Raymond D. and Enid M. Kelly Student Travel Fund, Franklin College, 501 E. Monroe St., Franklin, IN 46131-2598.
Submitted by Mark Wirey