Northwest Aerospace News PNAA 2021 ADVANCE | Page 19

Bill Boeing kept his company together by building furniture and speedboats , and by setting a goal that if he could keep the doors open for two more years , there would be no turning back . He was right .

In the 1920s , the Boeing Airplane Company found success as a primary supplier of fighter planes to the U . S . Military and in 1927 Bill Boeing took the major step of starting an airline : Boeing Air Transport . By 1930 , he expanded his airline and aircraft business into one of America ’ s largest and most successful enterprises , United Aircraft and Transport Corporation ( UATC ), which created America ’ s first transcontinental air route . In 1934 , his great success despite the Great Depression attracted the attention of the Roosevelt administration , and Bill Boeing was forced to break up his company . UATC lives on today as United Airlines , United Technologies and The Boeing Company . Following the breakup , Bill Boeing retired from the aviation business .
Bill Boeing ’ s successor , Claire Egtvedt took the company in a new direction — building big airplanes . On July 28 , 1935 the first of the “ big Boeings ,” the Model 299 — prototype for the B-17 Flying Fortress — took off from Boeing Field . The pioneering Flying Fortress saved the Boeing Company from extinction and became the foundation for America ’ s airpower strategy in World War II .
The sixth Boeing Model 314 lifts off from Seattle ’ s Elliott Bay in August 1941 . A dozen of these giant flying boats were built at Boeing Plant 1 on the Duwamish River for Pan American Airlines and became the icon of the romantic era of air travel just prior to the Second World War . ( Boeing image )
A B-52F , the last Boeing Seattle built B-52 , waits for delivery at Larson AFB , Moses Lake in February 1959 . Production continued in Wichita with the B-52G and H models .
Photo Credit : The Boeing Company
On May 14 , 1954 Boeing President William Allen joins Bertha Boeing , wife of company founder William Boeing , as she christens the Boeing Dash 80 at the Boeing Renton Plant . Bill Boeing was able to see his company pioneer the jet age just prior to his death in September 1956 .
By the time the U . S . entered the war , Boeing was ready . The company had established a new factory , in 1936 at Boeing Field , and by the end of the war , Boeing employees at the new factory , called Plant 2 , had built nearly 7,000 B-17s .
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