William Boeing1 And His Planes

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The son of a wealthy lumberman2, William E. Boeing dropped out of Yale University in 1903 to begin his own lumber business in Washington state. His company proved quite successful. After making his fortune trading forest lands around Grays Har¬bor3, Washington, Boeing moved to Seattle in 1908 and, two years later, went to Los Angeles for the first American air meet. Boeing tried to get a ride in one of the airplanes, but not one of the dozen aviators participating in the event would oblige4. Boeing came back to Seattle disappointed, but determined to learn more about this new science of aviation. Years later, after attending a public exhibition of flying in Los Angeles, Boeing became fascinated by the field of aviation. When he flew for the first time in 1914, he became obsessed with5 building his own plane.
For the next five years, Boeing's air travel was mostly theoretical, explored during conversations at Seattle's University Club with George Conrad West erect, a Navy engineer who had taken several aeronautics6 courses from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The two checked out biplane construction ...
... and were passengers on an early Curtiss Aero plane and Motor Company-designed biplane that required the pilot and passenger to sit on the wing. Westerville later wrote that he "could never find any definite answer as to why it held together." Both were convinced they could build a biplane better than any on the market.
In the autumn of 1915, Boeing returned to California to take flying lessons from another aviation pioneer, Glenn Martin. Before leaving, he asked Westerville to start designing a new, more practical airplane. Construction of the twin-float seaplane began in Boeing's boathouse, and they named it the B & Convinced he could build a better plane than those currently in the air, Boeing enlisted8 his engineering friend, George Conrad Westerville, to design and build the B8W, a twin-float seaplane. Encouraged by this first effort, Boeing decided to begin his own plane-building company, Pacific Aero Products. He renamed it the Boeing Airplane Company the following year.
In 1917, Boeing knew the Navy needed planes for WWI. Betting that his Model C seaplane just might be what they needed , he had the plane shipped off in pieces to Florida and reassembled for Navy officials to test. Boeing's hunch9 paid off10- his company received an order for 50 of the planes. When WWI ended, however, the military drastically cut back its request for new planes. He kept his company afloat by building bedroom furniture, cabinets, and boats. " Boeing persevered in the plane-building business, though. He produced a commercial bi-plane, the B-1 , which made history March 3, 1919 when Boeing and pilot Eddie Hubbard flew the plane between Seattle and Vancouver13, establishing the first international air mail route. The two men ran the route into the mid-1 920s.
Boeing outbid14 the other airlines in 1927 to win a contract to deliver air mail between San Francisco and Chicago. To keep up with the demands of handling air mail, Boeing built the new 40-A transport planes and formed Boeing Air Transport ( BAT) . BAT proved itself extremely successful. Under his vision and guidance, Boeing's small company had grown by the late 1920s into a thriving business. In addition to Boeing's transportation service, the company by now included divisions for manufacturing planes, engines and propellers15.
In 1934, the Roosevelt Administration passed new federal antitrust laws which forbid air mail carriers and aircraft manufacturers to be part of the same company. Boeing's air mail contracts were cancelled and he was forced to split his business into several different companies. Later that year, Boeing sold all his stock in the company, but he never lost his enthusiasm for planes. He later volunteered his time as a consultant to Boeing during WWII. He began a very successful thoroughbreds-breeding business, among many subsequent ventures. By the time he passed away in 1956, his company had grown into a major aircraft manufacturer about to enter the jet age.