Tag Archives: Airplane
Seaplane on Lake Union, Seattle, July 6, 1935
Seaplane on Lake Union, Seattle, July 6, 1935
Handwritten on sleeve: Pilot Kurtzer on pontoons – Lake Union 7-6-35.
Photographer: Charles Laidlaw
Image Date: July 6, 1935
Image Number: 1983.10.18067.14
To order a reproduction or to inquire about permissions contact us on our website or phone us at 206-324-1126. Please refer to the Image Number and provide a brief description of the photograph.
Navy O2C biplane in flight, July 1934
Navy O2C biplane in flight, July 1934
According to the aircraft type designation on the tail, this is an O2C observation plane, which was made for the U.S. Navy by Curtiss.
Handwritten on sleeve: Lt Cram & “Sgt Grave” – Close up of plane 7-34.
Photographer: Charles Laidlaw
Image Date: July 1934
Image Number: 1983.10.18059.2
To order a reproduction or to inquire about permissions contact us on our website or phone us at 206-324-1126. Please refer to the Image Number and provide a brief description of the photograph.
Northwest Plane at Sea-Tac Airport, Bow Lake
Northwest and United were the first two airlines to set up operations out of the new Sea-Tac Airport. Northwest operated the airport’s first transcontinental flight in 1945 and its first scheduled flight to Asia in 1947. The plane is a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser.
Photographer: J. Boyd Ellis
Image Date: No Date
Image Number: 1995.6.183
To order a reproduction or to inquire about permissions contact photos@seattlehistory.org or phone us at 206-324-1126. Please refer to the Image Number and provide a brief description of the photograph.
…Doing it Better
Unveiling of Boeing's new 707 jet, Renton, 1954
Sunday Quote
[Boeing CEO Bill] Allen had seen the Comet, at an air show in Farnborough, England, in 1950, while it was still in production and testing, and his response was curiously evocative of the conversation back in 1914 between Bill Boeing and Conrad Westervelt, the one that had launched the company.
“I think we could build a better!” Boeing had told Westervelt that day on Lake Washington.
At a dinner in London just after the air show, Bill Allen had a question for one of his top engineers, Maynard Pennell. “How do you like the Comet?” “We could do better,” said Pennell. Allen thought about it some more, and even zipped himself up in a flight suit for a test of various military jets. He was impressed not only by the speed, but also by the lack of vibration and noise, compared with the rat-a-tat motion and roar of a propeller airliner.
[...]
… A month later Allen got the board’s go-ahead, and he told his engineers to draw up some plans but keep it all quiet for a few months. Then in the summer of 1952, the consummate lawyer issued the most carefully crafted of statements – complete with a suggestion, though not an explicit statement, that perhaps Boeing had been at work on the idea far longer than it really had been. “The Boeing Company,” announced Bill Allen, “has for some time been engaged in a company-financed project that will enable it to demonstrate a prototype jet airplane of new design to the armed services and the commercial airlines in the summer of 1954.”
Taken from Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World by Sam Howe Verhovek. The quote describes in part Boeing’s decision to invest in jet technology, starting on the path to create the Boeing 707, the first commercially successful jetliner.
Jet Age is available in the Museum Gift Shop or from Amazon.com.
…On and Above Lake Union
MOHAI Minute
The newest MOHAI Minute has Helen and Peder exploring the origins of Boeing on Lake Union as well as a very special mail airplane residing at MOHAI.
To see all the other MOHAI Minutes, click here.
