Bill Boeing Jr., son of the founder of The Boeing Aircraft company has passes away at the age of 92.
He never worked for his father’s old firm…Boeing S.r sold his interests in it during the 30s…but was a successful businessman and contributor to the Seattle Museum of Flight and local charities including the Seattle Children’s Hospital. .
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2025417529_billboeingjrxml.html
A friend knew Mr. Boeing who told him (as related in the newspaper article) that his first flight was in a Boeing Model 40, Boeing’s first airliner (actually a “stretched” mail plane).
By: J Boyle - 10th January 2015 at 16:41
my notion that Boeing is/was a more personal company than Airbus is finally exposed as groundless fantasy.
Really? Once WWII came and brought a huge expansion of the company’s size, I wouldn’t have expected Boeing to be a family shop…even if Boeing senior had several sons.
In contrast, UK aviation firms were usually smaller, concerns…and often family run. At least that’s the impression I get from reading my Putnam books and Hamilton-Patterson’s Empire of the Clouds.
I’m not saying one is better than the other, but as the industry developed (along with huge R&D, design and production costs), firms had to get bigger or merge to remain viable.
Douglas was very much a “personal” family organization…and not necessarily for the better.
Author Rene J. Francillon makes that very clear in his excellent book Douglas Propliners, Haynes, 2011.
By: longshot - 10th January 2015 at 13:08
Thank you for that link….I hadn’t realised that Bill Boeing Sr. had severed his links with the Boeing/P&W/United AirLines conglomerate when it was broken up (1934?)….perhaps explains why he bought a Douglas DC-5 as a private plane in 1940…. my notion that Boeing is/was a more personal company than Airbus is finally exposed as groundless fantasy…I do find it weird when the TV News these days talks of ‘Chicago based Boeing’
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January 9, 2015 at 9:19 pm