“Boeing”: 110 Years of Racing Ahead of the Competition

 On July 15, the American aerospace corporation The Boeing Company turned 110 years old. It traces its history back to the Pacific Aero Products Company, a small company registered on that day in 1916 in Seattle (Washington). 

 Its founder was William Boeing, a 34-year-old successful timber producer. He had German roots, studied, but did not graduate from the prestigious Yale University, was interested in aviation for more than 5 years and even learned to pilot a plane at one of the private flight schools. At that time, he and his friend, marine engineer George Westervelt, had already built the B&W floating biplane. It is also known as Boeing Model 1 and is considered the firstborn of the Boeing company.

 Having considerable personal wealth and considerable experience in working with wood - the main aviation material at that time, William Boeing hoped to develop a new successful business. After making sure that the "B&W" plane was safely in the air, he ordered to build a second such machine as soon as possible and offered both examples to the US Navy. Having received a lick, the energetic Boeing was not too upset and found a new buyer, which became a flight school all the way from New Zealand. Thus, both the first commercial success and the first export delivery took place in the history of the Boeing company.  

 In 1917, William renamed his company the Boeing Airplane Company. As the chief designer, he hired Wong Tsoo, a talented Chinese emigrant who managed to study engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.He fully lived up to expectations by creating the Boeing Model 2 (or Model C) training aircraft. On the eve of the entry into the First World War, the American military became interested in this machine, and the Navy purchased 51 float copies, and another 2 land planes were bought by the Army. It was already a real breakthrough! Since then, fruitful cooperation between the Boeing company and the US Armed Forces began.

 However, after the end of the First World War, military orders collapsed, and the market for civilian aircraft was filled by cheap demilitarized machines. In order not to close its factory in Seattle on the Duwamish River, Boeing took orders for boats, expensive furniture, etc. 

 Rather quickly, Boeing's aviation business revived and even successfully passed the test of the "Great Depression" of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Several dozen types of aircraft of various classes were created, the vast majority of which remained experimental or produced in very small series. But stage cars also happened. For example, in 1932, the P-26 Peashooter began to fly, becoming the first all-metal monoplane fighter in the United States. It was adopted and 151 copies were built. At the beginning of the next year, the aviation community was surprised by the passenger Boeing 247 with 10 seats. It is considered the first "classic" airliner, the features of which can be seen in modern planes. It seemed like a product that would capture the market, but only 75 machines were produced, losing in the competition to the Douglas Aircraft company. She quickly created on the basis of her DC-1 a more advanced DC-2, and then the legendary DC-3, about which there is a separate message on our website.In the interwar period, the Boeing company became famous, but did not break out among the leaders of the American aircraft industry. It went through a series of reorganizations and mergers, and the business was expanded at the expense of subsidiaries engaged in air transportation. And here there was a conflict with American antitrust laws, which forbade manufacturers and airlines to exist in the same corporation. It was necessary to go to another reorganization, which William Boeing took painfully. After selling all his shares, he left aviation forever. In the future, he engaged in other business, in particular, breeding thoroughbred horses and real estate trading. Earned a dubious reputation for racist views. He died a wealthy man at the age of 74.

 The new president was an experienced aviation engineer, Clairmont Egtvedt, who started working at Boeing as a draftsman back in 1917. He insisted on building a new plant in Seattle and believed that the future of the company lay in the production of large aircraft. However, the XB-15, which became the largest bomber of that time, did not excite the military - the short-lived fascination with giant, but slow bombers has already passed. Instead, the B-17 Flying Fortress, created in 1936, turned out to be a huge success for Boeing, and we also have a separate report about it. More than 12,700 such machines were built, which became one of the symbols of American air power during the Second World War. 

 In September 1942, the B-29 Superfortress took to the sky. At that time, no country had anything like it, and this machine quite rightly earned the reputation of the best heavy bomber of the Second World War.

The war greatly contributed to the development of Boeing. In general, the entire American aircraft industry and related industries were driven forward by huge military orders and frantic investments. Since then, they have not lost their world leadership.

However, it should not be assumed that Boeing has taken a dominant position in the USA. For example, Consolidated was more successful, delivering more than 18,000 of its B-24 Liberators, the same class as the B-17. And in the fight for an intercontinental bomber, Convair was the winner with the six-engine B-36 Peacemaker.

In the first postwar years, the entire American defense industry experienced failure. So, due to a sharp decrease in military orders, Boeing had to lay off almost 70,000 workers. The company's management was well aware that such a situation was inevitable and it was necessary to prepare for it in advance. In particular, back in 1944, a good C-97 transporter was created on the basis of the B-29. In the post-war period, there were also few orders for it, but more than 800 KS-97 air tankers were produced in several variants. 

In an effort to grab a piece of the civilian aircraft market, Boeing used modifications to the S-97 and with minimal costs created the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser in 1947, which could accommodate up to 100 passengers. These planes were famous for very high comfort on board, but only 56 copies were produced. And this is when the old competitor "Douglas" was able to sell more than 1,400 of its airliners from the DC-4/6/7 family. Perhaps even more painful was the blow from the Lockheed company, which before the war could not be counted on at all.It built more than 850 Constellations, considered by many experts to be the best piston airliners in history.

However, the "jet era" came, and here "Boeing" took revenge. In July 1954, the experimental Boeing 367-80 made its first flight. It was followed by the transport S-135 and the passenger Boeing 707, which became the most massive jetliner of the first generation. More than 1,000 such machines were built, almost twice as many as the similar DC-8 design.

In the second half of the 1960s, Boeing lost the competition to Lockheed for the opportunity to produce a strategic military transport aircraft. However, the design improvement was used to create the world's first wide-body airliner, the Boeing 747, which dominated the world market in its segment for more than 20 years. In the end, the Douglas company not only lost the competitive race, but first merged with McDonnell, and in 1997 with Boeing, after which it disappeared even as a brand. 

And it is impossible not to mention the phenomenon of the regional Boeing 737. It appeared in the spring of 1967, has already undergone four significant modernizations and continues to be produced today, surpassing the mark of 12,600 copies. For comparison, the most massive Soviet jetliner was the small Yak-40 with an index of 1,010 machines. 

True, because of the newest version of the 737 MAH, almost the biggest scandal in the history of Boeing occurred. In 2018-2019, two such aircraft crashes occurred. Investigations showed that the main reason was the shortcomings of the digital system of improving the characteristics of maneuverability.As a result, Boeing suffered significant reputational damage and billions in damages through lawsuits, fines and canceled orders. Added to this were the consequences of the general civil aviation crisis caused by the COVID-2019 pandemic. And the competitors did not sleep! This time, the European concern Airbus became the main one - its A320 family planes pushed the "737" from the throne of the most massive jet airliner.

In addition, today "Boeing" produces the latest versions of the world's largest twin-engine passenger airliner Boeing 777 and somewhat smaller long-haul Boeing 767 and 787 Dreamliner. And the fight for new orders from Airbus continues with variable success.

In the military sector, "Boeing" did not always win either. So, in April 1952, tests of the B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber began. It turned out to be so advanced that it is still in service with the US Air Force, of course, periodically undergoing modernization. However, this turned out to be the last success of "Boeing" in this field - the order for a supersonic strategic bomber was received by Rockwell International, and the inconspicuous "strategists" became the prerogative of the Northrop Grumman corporation.

In general, during its history, Boeing specialists have developed hundreds of types of products. Currently, in addition to airplanes, the company produces helicopters, space equipment, and various types of weapons. As of the end of 2025, its total assets were valued at more than 168 billion USD, and the net profit for that year was almost 2.3 billion USD. The headquarters are now located in the Crystal City area of ​​Arlington County, a suburb of Washington.The structure consists of three divisions for the production of civil aircraft, military equipment and space vehicles. The main facilities are located in Seattle, Everett (Washington) and St. Louis (state of Missouri). Subsidiaries and branches of "Boeing" are scattered all over the world. There is such a representative office in Kyiv, and the building in which it is located suffered significant damage from Russian rocket attacks. 

Boeing is a public company managed by a board of directors headed by Kelly Ortberg. On July 13 this year, speaking at the International Air Show in Farnborough (Great Britain), he said in particular: "Each new day is an opportunity to continue to build trust, paying special attention to safety, quality and timely fulfillment of obligations." 

At the air show itself, Boeing for the first time publicly presented the unmanned combat aircraft MQ-28 Ghost Bat, designed to support manned aircraft. In particular, it is responsible for airspace surveillance, reconnaissance, radio-electronic warfare. It is expected that it will also be able to carry weapons and will significantly enhance the capabilities of the group of aircraft with which it will be used. As you can see, "Boeing" not only responds to the requirements of the time, but also offers technology that will allow to dominate the airspace of the near future.

Rostyslav Maraev