BOEING A PIONEER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31809, 14 October 1968, Page 12

BOEING A PIONEER

The Boeing Aircraft Company has for the last 50 years pioneered new concepts in air transportation, and since 1946 it has become active in missile, space and rocket development. In the last five decades of the company’s activities, Boeing has built trainers, fighters, mail planes, bomb-

ers, transports, aerial tankers, pilotless aircraft, turbine engines, helicopters, hydrofoil boats, spacecraft, missiles, and giant launch vehicles—more than 100 separate products in all. Founded in Seattle, Washington, in 1916, the Boeing company is the world’s leading producer of multiengined aircraft. Since it was formed the company has built more than 26,000 aircraft, including more than 14,000 inulti-engined types.

When the company was founded in 1916 it had 21 employees and one product. That product was an open cockpit B. and W. seaplane capable of flying at 75 miles an hour. 34 States Today Boeing employees, who number more than 130,000, work at sites in 34 States and in 18 countries. Its jet airliners fly to 301 cities in 120 countries around the world. From the early strut and wire seaplane has come an impressive array of products carrying the company name. Some are: the Model 247, the first of the modern airliners; a host of tighter planes and trainers; the 817 and 829 bombers of the Second World War; the 847, the first of the big sweptwing jet bombers; the 707, America’s first jet transport, and the jetliner family which evolved from it Other Projects In addition to its role as a leading producer of commercial and military aircraft the company is active at present in the 500-seat Boeing 747 project the supersonic transport; in the manufacture of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile; and in the Saturn V and Lunar Orbiter programmes. Two of the largest helicopter programmes in the world are under way at Boeing company’s Vertol division. The Vertol 107, a twin-tur-bine transport helicopter, is in service with New York Airways and Pan American World Airways. Military versions are also in service with several air forces.