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For my paper on the commercial aspect of flight training, I saw it fit to examine the history of the biggest producer of commercial airplanes in the world, Boeing. In this report we will look at the history of Boeing from the early beginnings, such as the B&W’s, to the 777’s that fly the sky’s as you are reading this report. After all, if we are to become commercial pilots, then it is definitely in our best interest to know the heritage of the planes that we will be flying. The year 1903 can easily be considered the birth of flight, as we know it. Most people will say that because it was the year that the Wright Brothers made their first flight. But not to be outdone, it was also the year that William Boeing, born in Motor City, Michigan in 1881, left Yale engineering for the sunny west coast. Boeing was a brilliant businessman who made a fortune selling land rather quickly. After amassing great wealth he moved to what would become the home of Boeing, Seattle. Boeing was determined to learn as much as possible about this new science called aviation. In the first years he mostly did theoretical work, which was mainly conversations between himself and a Navy engineer by the name of George Conrad Westervelt. Together they explored the different dynamics of the early biplanes, and even got to take them up in the air. But neither of them was satisfied, and both believed that they could build an even better airplane. Boeing set the task before Westervelt to build a better airplane while he was taking flying lessons. So construction began on their twin-float seaplane called the B&W (their initials) in Boeing’s boat house. A setback came in 1916 when Westervelt was shipped to the east, leaving the project in Boeings’ hands. Boeing would not be discouraged however, and continued the project on his own despite the tremendous amount of money that he was losing. But nonetheless the first two B&W’s were finished in 1916 and took to the air at the hands of Boeing himself. After becoming incorporated in 1916 Boeing changed the name to Boeing Airplane Company and brought three key people to his team; Tsu Wong, Claire Edvedt, and Phil Johnson. He also built a wind tunnel in which to test his planes. Claire and Phil were just collage grads, and would both eventually become Presidents of Boeing, what a first job! Boeing however, was still struggling to make any kind of money, but in 1917 WWI was under way, and the Navy needed planes to train pilots with. Wong had designed a plane called the Model C, and was ready to show it to the Navy, except that it couldn’t make the trip from the west coast to Florida. So what did they do? They took two of the planes apart, packed them into crates and had them shipped by train to Pensacola where they were reassembled and tested by the Navy. It worked, and 50 were ordered making it the first production order for Boeing. Good times were short lived. After the war was over the government didn’t order any more planes, and because of all the biplanes that flooded the market, the small company had to build dressers and furniture just to stay afloat.
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