American corporation that is the world's largest manufacturer of commercial
aircraft. By the 1996 purchase of McDonnell Douglas Corporation, they are
also the world's largest manufacturer of military aircraft.
Started in 1916 as Pacific Aero Products by William Boeing
(1846-1956) in Seattle who was fanatically interested in flying, which
was a modernity at the time. Boeing had the same year built the seaplane B
& W together with his friend and navy engineer George Conrad Westervelt.
William Boeing, 35 years old when he started the company, had made a small
fortune in the forest industry. A year later the company name was changed into
Boeing Airplane Company. Out of Seattle, Boeing hired several of the very few
aeronautical engineers in the country at the time, and also started
collaborating with the University of Washington for research studies. Although
the market for airplanes weren't exactly profitable - has it ever been ? - the
company had a total of 28 employees in 1917.
This would all change with the outbreak of World War I. The Navy ordered
50 Model C seaplanes, and in 1918 the company had grown to over 300
people. When the war ended that same year, so did also most of the orders from
the military. The company started focusing on the civilian market, and more
specifically bi-planes which were common at the time. The company sold a few
of these for use with mail deliveries in the Nortwest and Canada, where
distances are great. It was however the army that kept the company alive by
purchasing 200 Thomas-Morse MB-3A fighter bi-planes for the Army Air
Service. These were not Boeing design however, so the company only put them
together.
In 1923 Boeing managed to win a contract for design and production of a
pursuit fighter for the Army Air Service, and starting with the Model 15 and
forward to the P12/F4B, Boeing became the largest supplier of fighters to the
military. They also managed to become the vendor of mail planes to the US
Post Office in 1927 and even started the airline Boeing Air Transport to
run the postal service between San Francisco and Chicago. In the late
twenties, the company bought several competitors, vendors, contractors and
even airlines to be included in Boeing. At this time the Boeing airline changed
its name to United Aircraft and Transportation Corporation... you can see
where this one's going, can't you ?
In early 30s there was an increased interest in monoplanes and Boeing soon
developed both civilian and military variants. The civilian Monomail, not
surprisingly intended for mail services, was also used as an airliner under the
name Model 247. The greatest competitor at this time was Douglas with its
DC-2.
In late 30s the antitrust legislature of the United States caught up with
the companyt. It was decided that airplane manufacturers could not own airlines,
or more specifically mail carriers. The result was that William Boeing
resigned as his company was split in three:
The remaining company now focused on manufacturing larger passenger planes
and military bomb planes. The result was the B-17 Flying Fortress
and its civilian counterpart Stratoliner. The latter was a great
success with millions of passengers every year in the booming market in the
beginning of 1940s. The B-17 was also a great success and the company produced
several hundred a month of these and its successor the B-29 during the World
War II.
After the war came trouble for the company, with as many as 70,000 people
fired. The company started focusing on smaller jet fighters and larger
commercial planes such as the Stratocruiser. The future did not lie in
propellers, however, so the Stratocruiser was soon cancelled. The company
instead came up with the jet bomber B-47 Stratojet and later in 1952 the
legendary B-52 Stratofortress, which still is in use. The B-52 were
also used as the base for the commercial jet 707 which also came
in the 1950s.
Following the 707 came a long row of different sized commercial jets, most of
which come in both passenger and freight versions:
- 727 (1964), 130 passengers
- 737 (1967), 107 passengers, smaller version of 727
- 747 1970, the jumbo jet four-engine which is still the
world's largest commercial aircraft, up to 500 passengers
- 757 (1982), up to 290 passengers
- 767 (1981), up to 400 passengers
- 777 (1995), up to 400 passengers
As mentioned, Boeing now owns McDonnel Douglas, and with them the airplanes
MD-11 and more, but I won't include them here.
On the military market, the B-2 stealth fighter is the larger of recent
projects. They also work on the Joint Strike Fighter. Boeing was also heavily
involved with the Apollo Program, lending over 2000 executives to NASA for
coordination and they also built large parts of the rockets. Boeing also has
manufactured satellites, helicopters and missiles and the International
Space Station.
After the acquisition of McDonnel Douglas, the company now has over 220,000
employees and over $51 billion in revenues. The company has recently moved its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago.
source: Boeing