- The most recent version of the Boeing 747 family, the 747-8
Most of us know the Boeing company by their recent, tragic 737 MAX crashes that cost nearly 350 lives and shook the world of aviation. This is the story of how Boeing went from aerospace giant to the subject of worldwide outrage.
Boeing began humbly, in 1916 as a military plane manufacturer. Its journey began with simple two seat planes, aircraft that could take off and land from the water. Selling these to the Navy was the original purpose of the Boeing company. One important thing to note here is that Boeing started as a purely engineering company, founded by an engineer, with almost solely engineers employed. Eventually, nearing the 1930s, Boeing’s variations on their bombers and torpedo planes, the epitome of engineering achievement at the time, earned them a contract with the U.S. military. Simultaneously, in 1928, Boeing began its expansion into the role most of us know it as, a commercial airplane manufacturer. Boeing acquired several smaller companies very early on to gain the top minds and manufacturers necessary to make commercial airplane travel safe and accessible. While they developed their own line of relatively short range propeller planes, the standard at the time, they merged four companies under their ownership to form United Airlines. Eventually, United Airlines was dissolved from Boeing as part of an anti-trust lawsuit in the mind 1930s and grew into the United Airlines we all know today.
And although Boeing was turning massive profits from their defense contracts with the U.S. military, their commercial airline contracts were nothing compared to their competitors. In fact, in many cases, they were losing money from their commercial air transport division, the company only staying alive on stimuluses from the U.S. government for U.S. applications. That’s when the engineers at Boeing decided to change the world. They asked the questions that any engineers would ask, not how to make money, or how to outsell competitors, but how to make air travel more safe, more efficient, and more effective. This is often considered the start of the golden age of Boeing as while they had great success with incredible military technology such as the b-52 stratofortresses that proved critical to an Allied win in WWII, they also threw away preconceptions of the superiority of propeller planes and designed and produced a turbofan plane. Even despite early hesitation from potential customers, Boeing designed this beautiful airplane that at the time nobody thought was possible, but is a defining factor of our world today. They did it because Boeing was an engineering company: their primary goals weren’t to turn a profit or become the image of a successful company but to develop state of the art technology that would help others. Despite initial hesitation, this airplane, the Boeing 707 quickly became preferred by airlines and customers because it enabled shorter flight times and smoother flights. Powered by hundreds of thousands of innovations, it inspired the Boeing 7×7 line of planes that many of us fly today. In this time period between 1950 and 2000, Boeing’s mission of developing state of the art technology led them to play critical roles in the lunar landing (building orbiters and rocket components) and the commercial airliner boom.
During this golden age, Boeing developed two aircraft that most of us have probably heard of or been on, the 737 family as well as the 747 family. While the 737 family was an instant success because of its engineering feats, the Boeing 747 was less lucky. Initial hesitation from customers and investors led to much uncertainty surrounding what Boeing termed the culmination of engineering achievement up to that point. Being a team of engineers, led by engineers and guided by sound principles, Boeing went ahead and developed the 747 family, nearly bankrupting themselves in the process. Despite all of the initial uncertainty, the top quality engineering of the 747 allowed it to carry more passengers on longer routes, reducing costs for commercial airline companies, reducing costs for the everyday passenger. In this way, the engineering mission at Boeing indirectly led to profits, but also did something much more important; it made air travel accessible to the middle class for the first time. The 747 changed aviation so critically that it is now often termed as “The Queen of the Skies”.
Stay tuned for a part two in the next two weeks!