BOEING PLANEMAKER TO THE WORLD

On 4 July 1914, a barnstormer named Terah Maroney was hired to put on a flying exhibition as part of the Independence Day festivities in Seattle, Washington. Having put on a display of aerobatics in his Curtiss seaplane, Maroney landed and offered to take up passengers. Almost on impulse a lumber company owner name Bill Boeing stepped up and allowed as how he’d like to take a ride. 

What happened in the next 30 minutes changed the course of aviation history and the history of the Northwestern United States as well. William E. Boeing had caught the flying bug. He was never to recover. 

The story of Boeing is the story of some of the most memorable aircraft in American aviation history, from early Boeing mailplanes to the giant flying boats-the Clippers, that opened the transatlantic and transpacific air – lanes in the late 1930s. During World War II there were the B-17, the ‘aluminium overcast’ that helped bring about the defeat of Nazi Germany; and the B-29 Superfortress, that played an important role in the defeat of the Japanese Empire. In the mid-1950s, Boeing gave the United States its first jetliner, the 707. A decade later, Boeing gave the world its largest jetliner, the 747. Today, more 727s have been sold than any other commercial jetliner in history. 

This book tells the Boeing story from its beginnings in a Lake Union boathouse, to its present status as the premier builder of commercial aircraft in the world. The book is more than just an airplane book, it is the story of the people who built the company and make it what it is. This is the story, too, of Boeing’s other products, from hydrofoils to solar energy, from San Francisco Street cars to the first and only vehicle to have been driven across the surface of the moon. 

This revised and updated edition contains the story of Boeing’s newest commercial ventures such as the Models 757 and 767 which were introduced in 1981, as well as the 737-400 and 737-500 series which were introduced in 1988 and 1989. Also included are the stories of the new extended upper deck’s super jumbo jets, the 747-300 and 747-400 which made their respective debuts in 1982 and 1988.