WILLIAM BOEING & DONALD DOUGLAS: AERONAUTICAL PIONEERS

The history of The Boeing Company and the Douglas Aircraft Company is, in essence, the history of commercial aviation.

The year was 1915  America had not yet entered World War I, Prohibition was still four years away, and a significant but unremarked event was taking place in suburban Los Angeles:

William Boeing journeyed from Seattle for flight instruction at the Glenn Martin flying school, and Donald Douglas arrived from the East to join the Martin Company as chief aeronautical engineer.

Within five years, the two men had formed their own companies and were soon competing head-to-head in one of the most significant business rivalries of the 20th century. 

Boeing Company and the Douglas Aircraft Company is, in essence, the history of commercial aviation. The two companies led America and the world in airplane development, challenging each other decade by decade, and marking the progress of flight from open-cockpit biplanes to jumbo jets. The uniquely American spirit evinced by the two companies -- a sense of imagination and daring combined with Yankee ingenuity.

William Edward Boeing, born in 1881 and christened "Wilhelm," was one of three children, the son of an educated German immigrant. Little is known of William Boeing's early life apart from the fact that he was just eight when his father died, that he was sent to Switzerland for part of his education, and that at some point he anglicized his first name and asked friends to call him "Bill." He entered Yale University to study engineering but left one year short of graduation in 1903, bound for the Pacific Northwest.

Boeing established himself in Grays Harbor and began trading and selling timber lands on the Washington coast. Like his father before him, he swiftly made his fortune in this enterprise. In 1910, he traveled to Los Angeles to witness the first American air meet, featuring the French ace Louis Paulhan. Fascinated, Boeing tried to obtain a ride in one of the planes, but circumstances prevented it.

By 1914, he was quartered in Seattle, where he frequented the University Club, smoking cigars and discussing the issues of the day. There he met Conrad Westervelt, a Naval engineer with a strong interest in aviation who was temporarily assigned in the Northwest.

According to an interview with its founder, The Boeing Company began as a holiday lark on a hot Fourth of July morning in 1914. Boeing and Westervelt celebrated Independence Day by purchasing rides in a seaplane flown by a barnstorming pilot off Lake Washington. Flying machines were still a novelty in 1914, and their design had advanced very little from the box kite prototype the Wright brothers had launched from Kitty Hawk 11 years earlier.

Bill Boeing went first -- exchanging his rimless eyeglasses for a set of goggles and taking his position beside the pilot. The two sat on the front edge of the lower wing, in front of a backward-facing pusher propeller. Boeing braced his feet against the footrests, his hands gripping the edge of the wing. There were no seat belts.

The pilot revved the engine, the frail craft raced across Lake Washington -- then lifted off into the air. Boeing was absolutely thrilled by the experience. The plane touched down, he exchanged places with Westervelt, then immediately went back up again when Westervelt landed. The two men spent the rest of the day repeating the experience. Between flights, they closely examined the construction of the rickety airplane. By mid-afternoon, they were already planning how to design a better craft.

A reserved man with a strong sense of privacy, Boeing was nonetheless possessed of great foresight and daring, and believed utterly in the future of aviation. In 1916, when the company's first test flight was scheduled and the pilot was inexplicably late, Boeing climbed into the cockpit and took the plane up himself -- explaining later that he "did not want to endanger anyone else." When a glut of ex-military planes forced a slump in the market following the close of World War I, he depleted his personal fortune to keep Boeing workers employed.

The Boeing Company was parted from its founder in 1934, when the Roosevelt administration dictated the divestiture of aircraft companies and airline carriers. But the company retained his stamp -- daring to make great leaps forward when it introduced jetliners in the 1950s and becoming a pillar of American technological leadership in the process.

Donald Wills Douglas, born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1892, was the younger son of William and Dorothy Hagen-Locher Douglas. As a young man, his interests centered on writing verse poetry, ocean sailing, and the new science of aviation.

In 1908, only five years after Kitty Hawk, Wilbur and Orville Wright announced the trial demonstration of a flying machine built to the U.S. Army's specification at Fort Meyers, Virginia. Captivated by the news, the 16-year-old Douglas persuaded his mother to accompany him to Virginia to witness the trials. This event appears to have cemented his desire to become involved in aviation.

A banker by profession, however, William Douglas insisted on a rigid, formal education for both his sons. Accordingly, Douglas enrolled in the Naval Academy in 1909, following his brother, Harold, who was already a sophomore. The younger Douglas spent much of his free time building airplane models powered by rubber-banded propellers. In one instance, he attempted to build a rocket-powered model -- the resulting smoke causing a panic when he launched it from the window of his room.

After three years at Annapolis, Douglas resigned as a midshipman, seeking to continue his studies at an institution with a greater emphasis on aero-nautical engineering. He enrolled at MIT, finishing the four-year mechanical engineering course in two years and graduating in 1914. He remained at MIT the following year as an assistant in aeronautical engineering, working on wind tunnel design and consulting on a dirigible for the U.S. Navy.

In August 1915, at the recommendation of his instructors at MIT, Douglas accepted the position of chief engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company in Los Angeles. He was 23 years of age.

In 1916, Douglas accepted a position with the War Department as the head of the Aeronautical Branch of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. By 1920, he had established his own company. In 1924, the U.S. Army Aviation Service mounted the first around-the-world flight, commissioning Douglas biplanes for the journey. Upon the successful completion of this feat, Douglas united his Scottish family crest -- the winged heart -- with a globe-encircling design to form the Douglas Aircraft Company logo.

A man of many interests, Donald Douglas won the silver medal in sailing (six-meter class) at the 1932 Olympics. It was his passion for flight that burned the brightest, though; he led his company by example, inspiring all who worked with him.