BOEING TESTS FIRST AIRPLANE, June 29, 1916
Perhaps the biggest brand in aviation history took off, literally, from Lake Union in Seattle, Wash., in the B&W, a two-seat, single-engine float plane that carried the initials of William Boeing and his partner, Navy Lt. Conrad Westervelt. The builder's goal at the time was to secure a contract from the Navy to build planes in case the U.S. got involved in World War I. When passenger service became a reality, Boeing would put his stamp on the commercial industry like no other.
PAM AM BEGINS TRANS-CONTINENTAL SERVICE, June 28, 1939
When Pan American's B-314 Yankee Clipper made its first passenger flight between New York and Marseilles, France, a dream of quickly connecting Europe and the United States was realized. The man who made it happen was Pan Am boss Juan Trippe, whose regular service from New York to Lisbon, Portugal (the most common entry point in Europe at the time) dominated transatlantic routes.
"In the eyes of the British and the French, the Concorde supersonic jet that made its maiden flight last week is far more than the newest transport to take to the air. The plane is a gamble of enormous stakes; Paris and London together have invested more than $1.5 billion in the plane, nearly triple the original estimate, and have budgeted $600 million more for initial production. On the Concorde rides much of the future of aeronautical industries of both France and Britain, as well as the possibility of further industrial partnerships between the two countries. Sales of the plane could bring in significant amounts of foreign exchange to lift already shaky economies." — TIME, March 14, 1969
E X C E R P T BOEING'S 747 ENTERS COMMERCIAL SERVICE, Jan. 21, 1970
"Pan American executives knew that they would run into all sorts of problems in getting their 747 jumbo jets through what airmen call a new plane's "learning curve," and they tried to anticipate as many as possible. But a variety of major and minor difficulties, some of which could hardly have been anticipated, last week turned the 747's first commercial flight from New York to London into an alternately frustrating and funny experience for the 352 passengers." — TIME, Feb. 2, 1970
E X C E R P T 9/11 TERRORIST ATTACKS, Sept. 11, 2001
"Just how does a plane become a guided missile? The answer, in part, is that the air-security system in the U.S. is porous in so many ways that a breach was not surprising — only the incomprehensible dimension of it. For aviation experts, who are all too familiar with the gaping holes in the nation's vast network of 100 large airports, there was a sad, easy explanation for Sept. 11: you get what you pay for." — TIME, Sept. 24, 2001
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