Born in 1901 in Lawrenceburg, IN, Kelly’s career spanned commercial aviation from its earliest age to supersonic flight. His decision to pursue aviation came in 1921 at the hands of a barnstormer offering flights from a central Indiana wheat field. At the time, Kelly was a sophomore chemistry major at Franklin College in Indiana. With camera in hand, he boarded the Standard J-1 biplane, snapped the first aerial photo of his college and changed his life’s plan.

With a blind spot in one eye, Kelly had limited potential as a pilot, so he concentrated on the design and manufacture of airplanes. He transferred to Purdue University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1925. From 1925 to 1928, Kelly worked as a civilian engineer with the Army Air Corps at McCook Field near Dayton, OH. There he collaborated with Albert Hegenberger and James “Jimmy” Doolittle in tests and demonstrations of instrument or what was then called “blind” flying. He was also part of the development team that perfected the electrically heated pitot tube. In these formative days of aviation, Kelly was privileged to meet other famed aviators, including Orville Wright.

In 1928, Kelly began working in Los Angeles at The American Paulin System Company developing next-generation sensitive altimeters. In 1930 he took a position as instrument shop foreman at the maintenance base of Boeing Air Transport in remote Cheyenne, WY. The company, an early unit of today’s giant aircraft maker, would soon merge with three other fledgling companies to form United Airlines. For Kelly, this began a 37-year-career in commercial aviation that continued at United facilities in Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco. Following World War II, Kelly was asked by United’s president, W.A. “Pat” Patterson, to investigate the feasibility and size limitations of jet transports. Kelly’s hallmark “Paper Jet” study, conducted from 1952 to 1953, helped establish that larger passenger jets could economically outperform the era’s more popular 50-seat propliners and smaller jets of the time. In 1955, United made a historic decision to order 30 100-seat Douglas DC-8s.

Kelly completed his career at United in 1967 as director of technical development, based in San Francisco. He remained professionally active into the early 1970s in part-time stints with the aviation consulting firm R. Dixon Speas Associates. His last projects focused on the development of prototype supersonic transports or “SSTs” for aircraft makers Boeing and Lockheed.

Kelly spoke and lectured widely and received numerous professional honors, particularly for his contributions to flight safety and airline operating efficiency. In 1954, he was given the Flight Safety Foundation Award by the Society of Automotive Engineers for helping to establish the “S-7” committee on flight deck and aircraft handling standards. The committee still operates today with a membership of prominent airline captains. Kelly was named as a fellow of both AIAA and the Institute of Aerospace Sciences in 1963 and, in 1971, became a member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1977 Kelly delivered the sixth annual AIAA/SAE William Littlewood Memorial Lecture.

It is fitting that Kelly’s first flight included a camera. Through most of the twentieth century, he shot and edited scores of 8mm movies, recording flights ranging from the earliest mail planes to the Concorde and Apollo missions. A 45-minute-long compilation of this work, titled 44 Years in Aviation, 1931 to 1975, includes a narration track by Kelly and features the best known footage of a Boeing Dash 80 (prototype of Boeing’s first passenger jet, the 707) performing a controversial aerobatic roll above Lake Washington in Seattle, WA, in 1959. The film is held at the archives of the National Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA, and the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, WI. Video interviews with Kelly are also on file in the archives of the National Air and Space Museum and United Airlines.

Despite his professional accomplishments, Kelly was most proud of his family. Several of his family member followed him into the aeronautics field, and his son, Douglas Kelly, is a director of the Experimental Aircraft Association.