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Airports Owned by Washington's Public Port Districts

Of the nearly 140 public general-aviation airports in Washington state, 33 are owned and operated by port districts, comprising 31 landing fields and two seaplane bases in 27 different port districts dispersed through 20 of Washington's 39 counties. Many were built in the 1930s and early 1940s as New Deal projects or military fields. A very few ports built their own airports from scratch; others took over existing facilities from local governments; and some purchased and improved rudimentary landing strips built by private owners. The busiest port-owned airport, Seattle-Tacoma International, handles millions of passengers and thousands of tons of commercial cargo every year. Throughout the state smaller communities rely on local airfields, many port-owned, for critical services, including medical evacuation, firefighting, agricultural support, and access to the larger regional, national, and international transportation hubs. The role of these local airports in supporting rural communities and their economies has become increasingly important as the old extractive industries fade away, railroad lines are abandoned, and tax revenues shrink. What were once considered by many to be land-consuming clubhouses for hobbyist fliers are today recognized as important, even essential, components of a community's economic and physical well-being. The growing awareness that an airport, once lost, may be impossible to replace, has fueled efforts in many localities to retain, maintain, and upgrade these critical links to the larger world. This movement is one in which Washington's port districts continue to play a leading role.
File 9498: Full Text >

Alaska Airlines

Alaska Airlines traces its roots to the hardy pilots who flew the Alaskan "bush" in the 1930s. The airline was assembled through a series of purchases and mergers leading to the creation of Alaska Star Airlines in 1942, which dropped its middle name one year later. Chiefly equipped with a fleet of war surplus aircraft, Alaska built up a substantial charter business in the late 1940s, and participated in the Berlin Air Lift, evacuation of Chinese Nationalists, and transport of Jews to the new state of Israel. Alaska Airlines won federal approval for its first scheduled route linking Portland, Seattle, Fairbanks, and Juneau, in 1951. It introduced its first jetliners a decade later and grew to become a major regional airline. The Seattle-based airline was heavily buffeted by financial and labor strife following federal deregulation in the mid-1980s, but survived to expand service beyond the Pacific Northwest. Alaska enjoys an exceptional safety record with only four serious accidents between 1943 and early 2000.
File 2107: Full Text >

Allen, William McPherson (1900-1985)

William McPherson Allen served the Boeing Company as president from 1945 to 1968 and is credited with leading the company into the jet age and providing a strong and enduring tradition of integrity and leadership. In 1954, the same year the Boeing 707 made its maiden flight and took air travel into the jet age, the Seattle-King County Association of Realtors named William Allen Seattle's First Citizen of the year.
File 7520: Full Text >

Beachey, Lincoln (1887-1915): Vancouver's First Aeronaut

Lincoln Beachey was one of the most famed aviators of his day. In the summer and fall of 1905 he made a series of thrilling balloon flights at Portland's "Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair." In one feat he delivered a letter by balloon to the Vancouver (Washington) Barracks. Beachey was only 18 years old in 1905, but already he was a renowned aviator. No less a luminary than Orville Wright would later praise him as "the greatest aviator of them all." He died at the age of 28 after he lost control of his airplane during a demonstration flight in 1915.
File 7249: Full Text >

Boeing 307 Stratoliner Pressurized Airliner

Boeing's little known 307 Stratoliner, affectionately dubbed "the flying whale" for its portly lines, ushered in a new aviation era when it entered into airline service in mid-1940. It was the first in-service pressurized airplane and airliner. It is cabin pressurization (termed cabin supercharging at the time), along with air conditioning and heating that enables today's high altitude passenger jet airliner flights above the weather and turbulence, where the thin air and sub-zero cold could kill passengers within minutes were they unprotected. The Seattle-built, propeller driven Stratoliner took the first practical step on the journey to safe high altitude passenger flight. Although only 10 aircraft were built, it was very successful in airline service; one was reported still carrying passengers in 1986. Remarkably, at least two airframes survive today, the restored Pan American Airways NC19903 Clipper Flying Cloud, which began flying again on July 11, 2001, and the fuselage of a model owned by Howard Hughes, which is now a yacht. As luck would have it, the Flying Cloud was the first in-service pressurized airplane and airliner.
File 3598: Full Text >

Boeing 707 Turbojet Airliner

Boeing, the oldest major aircraft manufacturer, entered the jet airliner business third, after the British and Russians. Success long eluded Boeing in the art and science of building and selling airliners (non-military airplanes for commercial air travel) at a profit. Beginning in 1928 with the model 80 trimotor airliner (a biplane with fabric covering), Boeing labored hard at producing a handful of innovative airliner designs in small, unrewarding quantities. In 1958, Boeing’s first jet airliner, the 707, proved to be the vehicle that finally changed the commercial side of the ledger from red to black ink. The 707, based on the prototype Dash-80 (1954), was the first truly successful jet airliner in service that was built in large numbers (almost twice that of the runner up Douglas DC-8) and which returned a profit to its maker.
File 3890: Full Text >

Boeing and Early Aviation in Seattle, 1909-1919

Seattle residents saw their first flying machine on June 27, 1908, a balloon flown by L. Guy Mecklem (1882-1973) from West Seattle's Luna Park, and saw another flying machine, a dirigible, in 1909 during the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Charles Hamilton demonstrated the city's first airplane the following year. Herb Munter (1897-1970), a self-educated engineer, was building his own aircraft on Harbor Island by 1915. His efforts attracted the interest of William E. Boeing (1881-1956) and Navy Lt. Conrad Westervelt, who hired Munter to help them build their first airplane, the B&W, in 1916. America's entry into World War I in 1917 lifted the new Boeing Airplane Co. to dizzying heights. Peace two years later sent it into a near-fatal nose dive.
File 5369: Full Text >

Boeing and United Air Lines from Birth to Break Up, 1919-1934

The Boeing Airplane Company nearly collapsed following the end of World War I military orders. Pioneer pilot Eddie Hubbard (1889-1928) helped William E. Boeing (1881-1956) deliver the first bag of international airmail on March 3, 1919, and urged the company to pursue U.S. Air Mail contracts. A skeptical Boeing bid on and won the Chicago-San Francisco route in 1927, and quickly developed faster aircraft culminating in the Model 247, the first true airliner. Boeing developed or purchased airlines to build its own passenger system, United Air Lines. It also expanded its holdings to create the giant United Aircraft and Transportation Company, but federal anti-trust regulators broke up the combine in 1934. An embittered Bill Boeing quit the company and sold his stock that same year.
File 5368: Full Text >

Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bomber

Famed for its World War II exploits, Boeing's Superfortress was conceived before the war. The B-29 was born near the war's midpoint, flying on September 21, 1942, built and employed in large numbers during the conflict. It successfully performed several roles during 15 months of combat, including bomber, minelayer, photoreconnaissance, search and rescue, and electronic warfare. B-29s fought in the Pacific theater, flying mostly from small islands with the world's largest airbases, over vast stretches of ocean, to enemy targets that could be more than 2,000 miles distant. Known as the only aircraft to drop atomic bombs in war, the B-29 contributed a major share to the Allied victory over Japan with its firebomb attacks and mine laying missions in the waters surrounding the home islands.
File 3828: Full Text >

Boeing B-47 Stratojet Bomber

Sleek. Rakish. Seemingly poised to thunder into the wild blue yonder sits an Air Force Boeing B-47 Stratojet bomber, guarding the south entrance to the Seattle Museum of Flight. Contemporary in appearance and perhaps the best-looking Boeing aircraft, the Stratojet flew for the first time on December 17, 1947. Swift and lethal, the B-47 introduced to production aircraft the sweptback wing with under-wing, pylon-mounted turbojet engines. This basic airplane configuration is now the accepted standard worldwide for all large turbojet powered airliners and transports. Just over five years separated the initial flights (in 1942) of the B-29 Superfortress, a very advanced propeller-driven bomber, and the B-47, its turbojet driven, nearly twice as fast, younger brother.
File 3861: Full Text >

Boeing Machinists Strike, 1948

On April 22, 1948, the Aeronautical Machinists Union, IAM District Lodge 751, struck the Boeing Company. William Allen was then president of Boeing. For the Machinists the issues were preserving longstanding seniority rules that the company wanted to scrap, and achieving a 10 cent per hour raise for all categories of labor. The strike was characterized by the unusual occurrence of another union, Dave Beck's Teamsters, collaborating with the company to defeat the machinists union. On September 13, 1948, the Machinists returned to work without a victory, but in the subsequent NLRB-supervised election they soundly defeated the Teamsters.
File 2283: Full Text >

Boeing's Model 314 Clipper Flying Boat

During the 1930s, transoceanic travel was beyond the capability of all but a handful of aircraft. The solution was offered by giant dirigibles such as the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg and by ever larger "flying boats" -- multi-engine airplanes with boat-like hulls. The most elegant and successful of these was Boeing's Model 314, which first flew in 1938 and operated through World War II. The last of a dozen aircraft built was destroyed in 1951.
File 3253: Full Text >

Boeing, William Edward (1881-1956)

William Edward Boeing (1881-1956) started his professional life as a lumberman and ended as a real-estate developer and horse breeder, but in between he founded the company that brought forth important breakthroughs in the field of aviation technology and the airline business. The Boeing Airplane Company became one of the signature corporations of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest and dominated the regional economy for most of the twentieth century.
File 8023: Full Text >

Boeing-Quotient Puzzle, The Wright Stuff: HistoryLink "B-Q" Puzzle published by The Seattle Times on December 17, 2003, centennial of the Wright Brothers' first flight.

On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright executed the first controlled flights by a heavier-than-air machine, at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. One century later, The Seattle Times published this little quiz to test readers’ “B-Q� (Boeing Quotient). The puzzle ran one day after Boeing’s formal announcement that final assembly of the planned 7E7 aircraft would be located in Everett, Washington. The text of the original puzzle follows, as written by Walt Crowley and edited by Lee Moriwaki. Answers are provided at the end with Seattle/King County file numbers for corresponding HistoryLink essays to aid your search for background information and sources. Enjoy.
File 4270: Full Text >

Covington, Wayne Reinhart (1920-1999)

Wayne Reinhart Covington was a noted Boeing engineer whose 45-year career included work on B-17 Flying Fortress, Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, and on the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo moon missions.
File 1442: Full Text >

Crowley, Walter A. (1917-2008)

Walter A. Crowley (1917-2008), in recent years a resident of Oak Harbor, Washington, was an inventor and engineer who developed the first practical air-cushion vehicle in the summer of 1957 in Detroit, Michigan. The following year, he filed the first patent for an air-cushion vehicle, in this case a high-speed train straddling a triangular track, and built a large "ACV" capable of carrying two adults (now in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum collection). At virtually the same time, Sir Christopher Cockerell (1910-1999) developed similar concepts in Great Britain. Government funding propelled Cockerell's "hovercraft" to greater fame, but he acknowledged the originality of Crowley's work. Crowley went on invent the flexible skirt used on virtually all hovercraft as well as an efficient air-bearing system later commercialized by the Boeing Company as "Aero-Go." Crowley retired in the 1980s, lived on Whidbey Island with his second wife, Lily, and continued to pursue air cushion research in his home workshop. Walter Crowley died in May 2008.
File 7987: Full Text >

Douglas County -- Thumbnail History

Douglas County is a predominantly rural county located in north central Washington. Waterville is the county seat. The county's proximity to Grand Coulee Dam just over the county line (spanning the Columbia River between Okanogan and Grant counties), as well as the four Columbia River dams within the county have over time provided work for thousands of Douglas County residents. The county comprises 1821 square miles, and ranks 17th in size among Washington's 39 counties. The Columbia River, either flowing through its channel or constricted in equalizing reservoirs behind dams, almost completely encircles Douglas County, which is bordered by Chelan County to the west, Okanogan County to the north, Grant County to the east/southeast, and a small part of Kittitas County to the south. As of June 2006 Douglas County had an estimated population of 35,700. East Wenatchee (population 11,420) and Bridgeport (population 2075) are the largest towns. Agriculture, especially apple, pear, and cherry orchards, and wheat, provides a significant percentage of the county's employment.
File 7961: Full Text >

Felts Field (Spokane)

Felts Field, Spokane's historic airfield, is located on the south bank of the Spokane River east of Spokane proper. Aviation activities began there in 1913. In 1920 the field, then called the Parkwater airstrip, was designated a municipal flying field at the instigation of the Spokane Chamber of Commerce. In 1926, the United States Department of Commerce officially recognized Parkwater as an airport, one of the first in the West. In September 1927, in conjunction with Spokane's National Air Derby and Air Races, the airport was renamed Felts Field for James Buell Felts (1898-1927), a Washington Air National Guard aviator killed in a crash that May. Parkwater Aviation Field, later Felts Field, was the location for flight instruction, charter service, airplane repair, aerial photography, headquarters of the 116th Observation Squadron of the Washington Air National Guard, and eventually the first airmail and commercial flights in and out of Spokane. After World War II, commercial air traffic moved to Geiger Field (later Spokane International Airport). Felts Field remains a busy regional hub for private and small-plane aviation and related businesses and services. In 1991 it was designated Felts Field Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.
File 8464: Full Text >

Flying Saucers

The modern phenomena of UFOs and “flying saucers� began in Washington state on June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold spotted nine mysterious, high-speed objects “flying like a saucer would� along the crest of the Cascade Range. His report made international headlines and triggered hundreds of similar accounts of “flying saucers� across the nation. The rash of sightings peaked on July 8, 1947, when the U.S. Army reported that flying saucer wreckage had been found near Roswell, New Mexico. This was retracted the following day, and despite relentless debunking and the absence of concrete evidence, reports of flying saucers and other unidentified flying objects (UFOs) persist to the present day.
File 2067: Full Text >

Fort Lewis: Gray Army Airfield

Aviation came early to Camp Lewis with flights in October 1921 from Sand Point, Seattle, to the camp's sod runway. In 1922 the first hangar went up. Soon after that a dirigible Mooring Mast was erected and a dirigible landed. The first major construction occurred in 1938. Also, that year the field was named Gray Army Airfield (GAAF) in honor of balloon pilot Captain Lawrence Gray (1889-1927) . Gray Field served observation squadrons, first balloon and later aircraft units. During World War II patrol planes flew from here. In 1949 a most unusual event happened, an accidental pilotless plane flight to Ellensburg. Gray Field played an important role in helicopter operations in Vietnam and helicopter missile operations. This airfield continues to train and provide air support as well as search and rescue missions on Mount Rainier.
File 8623: Full Text >

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