Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: I Heeart Radio and How Stuff Works and a love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And in our last episode, I covered
Speaker 1: the early history of Boeing, from its founding to the
Speaker 1: early years of World War Two, when the pioneering aviation
Speaker 1: company was making long range bombers with the designation B seventeen.
Speaker 1: Now I didn't get to this factory, but at its
Speaker 1: peak production in nineteen four, airplane manufacturers were producing sixteen
Speaker 1: B seventeens in twenty four hours. Now that wasn't just
Speaker 1: Boeing's factories, mind you. Though Boeing was the company that
Speaker 1: designed the B seventeen, other manufacturers got the license to
Speaker 1: produce that same design in order to meet the military's
Speaker 1: need for more aircraft. Today, we're going to continue the
Speaker 1: company's history largely through World War Two, because a lot
Speaker 1: happened with Bowing at that point, and we're also going
Speaker 1: to talk about some other military aircraft as well as
Speaker 1: the commercial aircraft that Boeing would become known for. In fact,
Speaker 1: let's start with a passenger aircraft that Boeing was working
Speaker 1: on while it was also ramping up production of the
Speaker 1: B seventeens. So in the mid nineteen thirties, this is
Speaker 1: before the United States was in World War Two, the
Speaker 1: airline Pan American Airways better known as pan AM at
Speaker 1: the time, wanted more aircraft capable of making the transatlantic
Speaker 1: flight between Europe and North America. PanAm was one of
Speaker 1: many companies that sprung up in the nineteen twenties to
Speaker 1: meet the demand of carrying air mail and then evolved
Speaker 1: into a passenger service airline. The airline already had a
Speaker 1: few aircraft from another manufacturing company called Martin, so Bowing
Speaker 1: bid on this PanAm contract, and one the contract called
Speaker 1: for the design of a flying boat, which kind of
Speaker 1: tells you everything you need need to know about that
Speaker 1: type of aircraft. So, unlike a seaplane, a flying boat
Speaker 1: doesn't have pontoon landing gear, nor doesn't have wheels to
Speaker 1: land on firm ground. Instead, the fuselage of the plane
Speaker 1: itself is designed to float, and the aircraft lands and
Speaker 1: takes off from the water, so it looks like a
Speaker 1: boat with wings. These aircraft could be quite large because
Speaker 1: they used very large bodies of water as airports, so
Speaker 1: there was no need to build runways or landing strips
Speaker 1: that could be large enough to accommodate them, and that
Speaker 1: was a real limiting factor on early airports. You would
Speaker 1: go out and build an airport with a landing strip
Speaker 1: and you know, uh, you know, some some takeoff strips
Speaker 1: and everything was sized to the planes of the time.
Speaker 1: But that meant as they built larger planes, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: fit on those older airports. Well, this got around that
Speaker 1: because the airport was essentially the ocean or very large lakes,
Speaker 1: and those were huge, there was no need to worry
Speaker 1: about the size constraints. Boeing used much of the design
Speaker 1: for their bomber prototype, the x B fifteen, to serve
Speaker 1: as the foundation for this new commercial aircraft. This was
Speaker 1: the same prototype that served as the starting point for
Speaker 1: the B seventeen design. So the end result was a
Speaker 1: four engine plane propeller engines, mind you, not jet engines,
Speaker 1: and the plane was called the Model three fourteen Clipper
Speaker 1: because the aircraft had a max speed of one eighty
Speaker 1: eight miles per hour or three hundred and three kilometers
Speaker 1: per hour, and it's cruising speed was closer to a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty five miles per hour or two d nine
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour. There weren't that many seats aboard the aircraft.
Speaker 1: This allowed for a seating plan in which the seats
Speaker 1: could be converted into beds because a light could take
Speaker 1: twenty hours or so if you're going across the ocean,
Speaker 1: if it's going to be a twenty hour flight, you
Speaker 1: need to have a lot of space for people to
Speaker 1: be able to recline and sleep. I mean, that's almost
Speaker 1: a full day of flying. PanAm really pulled out all
Speaker 1: the stops, which, now that I think about, is another
Speaker 1: example of a tech phrase based off of a largely
Speaker 1: obsolete type of technology. Anyway, they made service aboard these
Speaker 1: planes a real luxury. It was high class travel, and
Speaker 1: so it was for a very small population of disgustingly
Speaker 1: wealthy people. And I might be showing a bit of
Speaker 1: envy here, but anyway, this was one example of a
Speaker 1: civilian aircraft that Boeing would make around the same time
Speaker 1: that was starting production on those B seventeen bombers for
Speaker 1: the military. Now, that luxury experience wasn't always a smooth one,
Speaker 1: because the Model three four teen Clipper wasn't a pressurized aircraft,
Speaker 1: so that minute actually had to fly at lower altitudes,
Speaker 1: which also meant it would have to fly below or
Speaker 1: through weather disturbances, so you can encounter some pretty rough
Speaker 1: turbulence depending upon the weather along your flight route and
Speaker 1: all around. That same time, Boeing designed and built a
Speaker 1: commercial transport aircraft that could fly much higher because it
Speaker 1: had a pressurized cabin, it can maintain a higher air
Speaker 1: pressure inside the aircraft than would be outside the aircraft
Speaker 1: at altitude. This particular aircraft had the designation of Model
Speaker 1: three oh seven, but it was better known as the
Speaker 1: Strato Liner, and we're gonna get a lot of Strato
Speaker 1: aircraft in this episode. Now. The Strato Liner was based
Speaker 1: off of Boeing's B seventeen designed directly. It was not
Speaker 1: based off the x B fifteen experimental aircraft like the
Speaker 1: three fourteen Clipper. The Strato Liner was an aircraft that
Speaker 1: Boeing had built for pan Am. It's are in manufacturing
Speaker 1: and testing these airplanes in nineteen These would be the
Speaker 1: first passenger aircraft to offer pressurized cabins, and they were
Speaker 1: also propeller planes. The pressurization allowed the aircraft to climb
Speaker 1: to higher altitudes without the pesky issue of subjecting passengers
Speaker 1: to low air pressure where the air isn't thick enough
Speaker 1: for you to actually get a good lungful. So that
Speaker 1: meant that you could have a pressurized cabin and the
Speaker 1: passengers could, you know, remain conscious. The strato Liner had
Speaker 1: a limited ability to pressurize the cabin. You couldn't actually
Speaker 1: climb up to the stratosphere in a strato liner, but
Speaker 1: it was still a pretty remarkable feat of engineering. The
Speaker 1: Strato Linner had a passenger capacity of thirty three and
Speaker 1: it would have a crew of six on top of that.
Speaker 1: While the initial plan was to use them for commercial
Speaker 1: air travel both across the ocean and as coast to
Speaker 1: coast service in the United States, World War two would
Speaker 1: mean that many of these aircraft would be purchased by
Speaker 1: the United States military to be used as transport for
Speaker 1: personnel and in the military. The strato Liner would receive
Speaker 1: the designation of C seventy five, exact same aircraft, although
Speaker 1: with the amenities really stripped out, it didn't need to
Speaker 1: be quite so fancy for military use, but it got
Speaker 1: a new designation. I should also add that the strate
Speaker 1: A Liner marked one of Boeing's big tragedies. On March eighteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, Boeing was demonstrating the strate A Liner
Speaker 1: for a Dutch airline called k l M. A k
Speaker 1: LM technical director named Albert Vaughan Baumhauer served as co
Speaker 1: pilot on this test flight, and there was a Boeing
Speaker 1: test pilot who was serving as the captain. There were
Speaker 1: eight other people on the plane as well, one of
Speaker 1: them from t w A. Most of the rest were
Speaker 1: either from Boeing or the Dutch air Ministry. And during
Speaker 1: the test, the pilot lost control of the aircraft and
Speaker 1: the aircraft went into a dive and the pilot was
Speaker 1: unable to recover, and so the strato Liner crashed and
Speaker 1: all of the people aboard died in the plane crash.
Speaker 1: After an investigation, Boeing engineers would add more components to
Speaker 1: the flight control system of the strato Liner, mainly a
Speaker 1: dorsal fin that would help with rudder control on the
Speaker 1: tail and thus improved its safety that way. But this
Speaker 1: was a very tragic way to learn that. Lesson, there's
Speaker 1: another strato Liner incident I should mention when that didn't
Speaker 1: have a tragic ending, but It's interesting because this was
Speaker 1: a relatively recent event. Now keep in mind these aircraft
Speaker 1: originally flew in the nineteen forties. But the incident I'm
Speaker 1: talking about happened on March two thousand two, so not
Speaker 1: that long ago. A three oh seven Strato Liner, registered
Speaker 1: to the National Air and Space Museum and operated by
Speaker 1: Boeing was to go through a pretty routine series of tests.
Speaker 1: There were two pilots and two test engineers aboard the plane,
Speaker 1: and it was to takeoff and land about three times.
Speaker 1: And it was flying between two different airstrips, one in Everett,
Speaker 1: Washington and one in Seattle, Washington that belongs specifically to Boeing.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile it was supposed to go through some routine
Speaker 1: maneuvers along the way. The first flight from Seattle to
Speaker 1: Everett went off without a hitch, but the second flight,
Speaker 1: the return trip from Everett to Seattle, was a different story.
Speaker 1: In fact, there are two different stories. So here's how
Speaker 1: the official story unravels. Shortly after takeoff from Everett's pain Field,
Speaker 1: the number three engine, so like the three fourteen, the
Speaker 1: strate A Liner had four propeller engines. The number three
Speaker 1: engine experienced a surge. Then it normalized, and it was
Speaker 1: at that point that the crew decided to scrap all
Speaker 1: the maneuvering test plans that they had in store and
Speaker 1: instead just fly straight to the Seattle landing Strip and
Speaker 1: land at Boeing Field. On approach to Boeing Field, a
Speaker 1: light in the cockpit indicated a problem with the landing
Speaker 1: gear on the left side of the plane, so they
Speaker 1: aborted the initial landing because clearly there was something going
Speaker 1: on with the landing gear, and they went into an
Speaker 1: orbit pattern around Bowing Field. The captain manually hand cranked
Speaker 1: the landing gear so it was down into place until
Speaker 1: the indicator light lit up green, letting you know the
Speaker 1: landing gear was fully extended. But that wasn't the end
Speaker 1: of their problems. While the landing gear was now down,
Speaker 1: before the crew could go into an approach course for landing,
Speaker 1: that third engine indicated a loss and fuel pressure and
Speaker 1: then failed completely. The other three engines also began to
Speaker 1: indicate lower fuel pressure, and the captain feathered the engines.
Speaker 1: The captain determined that the aircraft didn't have sufficient fuel
Speaker 1: pressure to make it back to Bowing Field, and so
Speaker 1: he chose to make an emergency water landing. In Elliott Bay.
Speaker 1: The crew got the aircraft down into the water where
Speaker 1: the airplane remained afloat, and all of the crew were
Speaker 1: able to evacuate wait the strato Liner and they were
Speaker 1: whisked off to safety. The plane was later retrieved from
Speaker 1: the bay. It had to be crane lifted out of it.
Speaker 1: But here's the other story. Now, First of all, I
Speaker 1: have to say this other story sites unnamed sources, so
Speaker 1: we have to take this with an enormous grain of
Speaker 1: salt because it could be totally untrue. But this story
Speaker 1: states that the Boeing pilots were actually funding this test
Speaker 1: flight out of pocket, that they were essentially doing this
Speaker 1: because they both really wanted to fly a strato Liner.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was a classic propeller plane, and they
Speaker 1: had actually planned on doing some circuits, meaning they were
Speaker 1: going to fly around and have fun in this giant aircraft.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of understandable. I mean, it is a
Speaker 1: historic aircraft, and they were paying for it themselves, so
Speaker 1: you can think, all right, well, it might seem a little,
Speaker 1: you know, silly, but it also seems reasonable. Mean if
Speaker 1: they're paying for everything, except obviously things didn't turn out okay,
Speaker 1: So According to this version of the story, the pilots
Speaker 1: only paid for about three gallons of fuel when they
Speaker 1: were at Boeing for the beginning of their trip, and
Speaker 1: their initial plan was they would fly the aircraft to
Speaker 1: pain Field and they would do a little few circuits,
Speaker 1: but then they would land at pain Field and refuel
Speaker 1: at pain Field because at pain Field the gas was
Speaker 1: slightly cheaper, or really the airplane fuel was slightly cheaper,
Speaker 1: and they could use that fuel for the rest of
Speaker 1: their flight shenanigans. But apparently at some point along the
Speaker 1: way here, having all this fun, the pilots forgot about this.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were enjoying flying the strate A liner too
Speaker 1: much and they failed to refuel the plane sufficiently. So
Speaker 1: they took off from pain Field for trip number two,
Speaker 1: and they had not properly refueled, and they started flying
Speaker 1: circuits again, taking the plane out on the joy ride,
Speaker 1: and engine three sputtered and died because there wasn't enough
Speaker 1: fuel in the system. They feathered the engine and they
Speaker 1: decided they needed to land the aircraft, and that's when
Speaker 1: they found out that the landing gear couldn't lower. And
Speaker 1: why couldn't the landing gear lower? Well, the power for
Speaker 1: the landing gear would normally be provided by engine three,
Speaker 1: but they had feathered engine three. Effectively, they had shut
Speaker 1: down the engine, so the engine could not provide the
Speaker 1: power to lower the landing gear, which meant they had
Speaker 1: to lower it manually. And then they decided they would
Speaker 1: go back to Bowing Field rather than land back at Pain.
Speaker 1: Remember Pain is where they took off, but they decided
Speaker 1: rather than returned to that that landing strip, which might
Speaker 1: have actually been closer before they started doing all their
Speaker 1: circuits and stuff, they decided to keep on going towards
Speaker 1: Bowing And making matters more confusing is that the Strato
Speaker 1: Liner maintenance facility was at Hayne. So why fly back
Speaker 1: to Boeing Field. Well, again, according to this unnamed source
Speaker 1: in this story, it's because the crew wanted to go
Speaker 1: back to Boeing Field because that's where they parked their cars,
Speaker 1: so the inconvenient if they landed in Pain to get
Speaker 1: everything maintained and fixed. Now, if this version of the
Speaker 1: story is true, the failure was on the part of
Speaker 1: the flight crew, not the aircraft. Now, again, I have
Speaker 1: no clue if the details of that story are true,
Speaker 1: but it was pretty big news in Seattle in two
Speaker 1: thousand two that Boeing had to ditch a Strato liner
Speaker 1: in that bay. So Boeing was making civilian aircraft for
Speaker 1: airlines and bombers for the US military leading up to
Speaker 1: the United States entering World War Two, which happened in December.
Speaker 1: In nine, a former Boeing leader came back to see
Speaker 1: the company through the massive wartime production operations, and that
Speaker 1: was Philip G. Johnson, who had worked for Boeing since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, and he rose to the level of president
Speaker 1: of United Aircraft and Transport Company. That was the holding
Speaker 1: company of Boeing's various businesses. But then the government, the
Speaker 1: US government forced that company to break apart, so he
Speaker 1: left Bowing in ninety three and then established trans Canada Airlines. However,
Speaker 1: he returned to Boeing to serve as the president. He
Speaker 1: was responsible for the company's performance during wartime. And when
Speaker 1: we come back, I'll talk about the B twenty nine
Speaker 1: super Fortress and how Boeing switched into full on military mode.
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. It's hard to
Speaker 1: stress exactly how much the bombing of Pearl Harbor affected
Speaker 1: the United States. Not only did it mean the US
Speaker 1: would officially declare war and into World War Two. It
Speaker 1: was also a terrifying example of how aircraft could pose
Speaker 1: as a serious threat. One of the actions Boeing took
Speaker 1: was to disguise its manufacturing facilities so that when viewed
Speaker 1: from the air, the facilities looked like a nondescript community.
Speaker 1: They built makeshift houses of stuff like burlap, and they
Speaker 1: put those on the rooftops of their buildings so that
Speaker 1: it looked like it was just a little poor community
Speaker 1: instead of buildings that were housing aircraft manufacturing facilities. But
Speaker 1: inside those buildings Boeing was ramping up production on the
Speaker 1: B seventeen bomber, and in their manufacturing facilities in Renton,
Speaker 1: Washington and Wichita, Kansas, the company prepared to make another
Speaker 1: long range bomber, the B twenty nine super Fortress. The
Speaker 1: military had determined that Boeing's B seventeen would be suitable
Speaker 1: for use in the European theater during World War two,
Speaker 1: but that a different aircraft would be required for the
Speaker 1: Pacific theater. There was a need for aircraft that could
Speaker 1: carry a heavier bomb payload many thousands of miles, so
Speaker 1: Boeing was and of several companies to submit a proposal,
Speaker 1: and along with manufacturing companies Martin, Douglas, and Lockheed, Boeing
Speaker 1: was invited to build a prototype of its design for
Speaker 1: military consideration. Lockeed and Douglas would both cancel their projects
Speaker 1: before they actually got to the prototype stage. They ultimately
Speaker 1: determined that it wasn't a profitable approach for them. The
Speaker 1: Army Air Corps, which would officially become the US Army
Speaker 1: Air Forces in would choose Boeing's design as their primary bomber,
Speaker 1: and then Martin's design. The B thirty two served as
Speaker 1: a backup. Boeing delivered some prototypes and before long entered
Speaker 1: into full production mode. The need was greater than what
Speaker 1: Boeing could accomplish on its own in its own facilities,
Speaker 1: and so a Bell Aircraft manufacturing plant and a Martin
Speaker 1: facility also would end up producing some B twenty nine aircraft. Also,
Speaker 1: this was the age of Rosie the riveter. That's the
Speaker 1: iconic image of a one and dressed for manufacturing work.
Speaker 1: She's flexing her muscles looking really powerful. Well, that wasn't
Speaker 1: just an example of propaganda. The workforces in these facilities
Speaker 1: were largely made up of women because the male working
Speaker 1: force was largely off at war, so most of these
Speaker 1: aircraft were primarily put together by women. The B twenty
Speaker 1: nine relied on an eleven person crew that included the pilot,
Speaker 1: the co pilot, You had several gunners, You had the bombardier,
Speaker 1: you had the navigator. There are a couple of others
Speaker 1: as well. The B twenty nine was heavier than the
Speaker 1: B seventeen, weighed in at seventy four thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: pounds when empty or thirty three thousand seven ms, and
Speaker 1: it was also longer than the B seventeen and also
Speaker 1: had a wider wingspan than the B seventeen. The aircraft
Speaker 1: would be used extensively in the Pacific, and it had
Speaker 1: pressurized sections so that the crew could move through them
Speaker 1: even when the plane was flying at high altitudes. One
Speaker 1: ex option of this was for the poor guy who
Speaker 1: served as the tail gunner. So the tail gunner position
Speaker 1: itself was pressurized. I mean that only makes sense. You
Speaker 1: need to have a conscious gunner in that position. But
Speaker 1: the area immediately around the tailgunner position, which was you know,
Speaker 1: sealed off from the rest of the aircraft, that area
Speaker 1: wasn't pressurized, so if you were the tailgunner, you would
Speaker 1: get into the tail gunner position before the aircraft had
Speaker 1: climbed into that higher altitude. You'd seal yourself in your position,
Speaker 1: would be pressurized, and then you'd be stuck there until
Speaker 1: the aircraft had descended to a low enough altitude where
Speaker 1: you could get out without having the problems of low
Speaker 1: air pressure. So that must have been pretty confining. Four
Speaker 1: of the machine gun turrets on the B twenty nine
Speaker 1: were capable of operation via remote control, which was a
Speaker 1: real innovation at the time, and then that two crew
Speaker 1: members could control the four turrets, and like the B seventeen,
Speaker 1: most of the guns aboard the B twenty nine were
Speaker 1: fifty caliber machine guns. It was a B twenty nine
Speaker 1: super fortress called the and Nola Gay that would carry
Speaker 1: the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Another B
Speaker 1: twenty nine called box Car, dropped the one on Nagasaki.
Speaker 1: These two attacks would be the first and the last
Speaker 1: nuclear attacks in history so far, hopefully they represent the
Speaker 1: last one ever. The B twenty nine project would actually
Speaker 1: be the most expensive military project in World War Two.
Speaker 1: It was, in fact more expensive than the Manhattan Project
Speaker 1: that was the project that was responsible for developing and
Speaker 1: building the atomic bombs, but the B twenty nine cost
Speaker 1: more money. During World War Two, Boeing also lost its
Speaker 1: company president, Philip G. Johnson, whom I mentioned just before
Speaker 1: the break. He died from a massive stroke as he
Speaker 1: was overseeing operations in the Wichita, Kansas manufacturing facility. In nine.
Speaker 1: Claremont Claire ex Vette, whose name I continue to butcher,
Speaker 1: but he had served as president of Boeing from nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three to nineteen thirty nine, would actually step back
Speaker 1: into the position for the remainder of World War Two
Speaker 1: as a sort of an interim president, and then he
Speaker 1: would hand the company over to William M. Allen in nine.
Speaker 1: Boeing made a couple of other military aircraft during World
Speaker 1: War Two besides the famous B seventeen and B twenty
Speaker 1: nine bombers. You may have heard about the B fifty
Speaker 1: super Fortress, and to be fair, the B fifty was
Speaker 1: really a redesignation of what was originally called a B
Speaker 1: twenty nine D, so it was part of the B
Speaker 1: twenty nine super Fortress family, but then got rebranded, if
Speaker 1: you will, into a B fifty. Boeing also made a
Speaker 1: long range cargo military aircraft called the Strato Freighter, and
Speaker 1: it also made a fighter plane, the XF eight B.
Speaker 1: This was a single engine propeller plane intended for the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy as not just a fighter, but also like a
Speaker 1: torpedo bomber. Boeing produced a prototype in NT four, but
Speaker 1: World War Two was over before the company was scheduled
Speaker 1: to enter into full production mode, so the project was
Speaker 1: scrapped with only three aircraft, all prototypes ever built. Boeing
Speaker 1: would also take the design of the C nine Strato
Speaker 1: Freighter and then refit it to serve as a commercial
Speaker 1: passenger aircraft. The new design needed a new name, which
Speaker 1: would become the Boeing three seventy seven Strato Cruiser. Boeing's
Speaker 1: customer was once again pan Am. This aircraft was a
Speaker 1: bit more posh than the military variant, as you might imagine.
Speaker 1: There were different passenger configurations for the Strato Cruiser, but
Speaker 1: generally it could hold between sixty three and eighty four
Speaker 1: passengers with a crew of four. The main cabin had
Speaker 1: a staircase that led down to a lower deck, and
Speaker 1: the lower deck actually served as a drinks lounge. Very
Speaker 1: very you know that kind of swinging. You know, I
Speaker 1: feel like I should remind you guys that these aircraft
Speaker 1: were all propeller airplanes. These are not jet engine aircraft.
Speaker 1: Yet we're not quite there, So this was considered, you know,
Speaker 1: very swanky kind of travel arrangements back when, you know,
Speaker 1: traveling on an airplane was a big deal and usually
Speaker 1: only the world to do could afford to ever set
Speaker 1: foot on them. While I'm on the Strato Cruiser, I
Speaker 1: should talk about the aircraft's safety record, because it's pretty dismal.
Speaker 1: Right now, the seven thirty seven Max aircraft from Boeing
Speaker 1: is in the news due to some truly horrible accidents
Speaker 1: that have happened with it. But that's not the first
Speaker 1: aircraft from Boeing to have problems that lead to tragedy. Now,
Speaker 1: it seems like the main fault for the Strato Cruiser
Speaker 1: lay in the choice of propellers. At the time of
Speaker 1: its construction, Bowing had essentially two choices for propellers for
Speaker 1: the Strato Cruiser. One was made by Curtis Electric and
Speaker 1: the other was made by Hamilton's Standard. The Curtis Electric
Speaker 1: propeller blades were heavier and more complex from an electro
Speaker 1: mechanical perspective and probably more expensive to the Hamilton's standard
Speaker 1: propeller blades would rely on a hydraulic system, so mechanically
Speaker 1: they were simpler, and they were also four hundred pounds
Speaker 1: lighter than the Curtis electric propeller blades, so Boeing went
Speaker 1: with the Hamilton's standard ones. They were lighter and they
Speaker 1: were less complicated. Unfortunately, the Strato cruisers operations sometimes placed
Speaker 1: more force on those propellers and their engines than they
Speaker 1: were rated to withstand, and that would lead to the
Speaker 1: propellers becoming unbalanced, which would then cause powerful vibrations that
Speaker 1: could damage the engines, sometimes ripping them clear off the aircraft,
Speaker 1: as appeared to be the case on April nine, that's
Speaker 1: when a Strato Cruiser en route to New York from
Speaker 1: Rio de Janeiro crashed in the Brazilian jungle. All fifty
Speaker 1: people aboard that plane died in the crash. This was
Speaker 1: the worst of the tragedies involving the Strato Cruiser, but
Speaker 1: sadly it was not the only one. There were others
Speaker 1: as well. There were enough incidents to lead the f
Speaker 1: a A to issue an airworthiness directive about the Hamilton's
Speaker 1: standard propeller blades, and while several accidents were traced to
Speaker 1: problems with propellers and ultimately with a sealant that was
Speaker 1: used to hold these hollow propellers together, other accidents had
Speaker 1: other causes, and there wasn't the only cause of accidents
Speaker 1: aboard Strato cruisers. One involved a cabin door being improperly sealed,
Speaker 1: and upon climbing to cruising altitude and achieving its pressurized status,
Speaker 1: that door ultimately failed and the cabin suffered explosive decompression,
Speaker 1: and it resulted in one passenger dying. Truly awful awful events.
Speaker 1: Between nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty, Boeing would manufacture
Speaker 1: fifty six Strato cruisers, and during the time of their operation,
Speaker 1: a total of one thirty nine people died in accidents
Speaker 1: involving Strato cruisers, the last of which took place in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy with a converted Strato cruiser that was meant
Speaker 1: to carry heavy aircraft parts. Now I got a backtrack
Speaker 1: just a bit, because we were in the nineteen forties
Speaker 1: and then I just went down the Strato cruiser line.
Speaker 1: But in ninety six Boeing signed a contract to develop
Speaker 1: what was called the ground to air pilotless Aircraft. And
Speaker 1: from that name it sounds like it could be a
Speaker 1: remote controlled drone, but that's not it. That was actually
Speaker 1: the name for a two stage missile designed to fly
Speaker 1: faster than the speed of sound, the first missile Boeing
Speaker 1: ever designed. It was an anti aircraft missile meant to
Speaker 1: intercept aircraft that could fly up to seven hundred miles
Speaker 1: per hour or one thousand, one hundred twenty six kilometers
Speaker 1: per hour and up to altitudes of eight thousand feet
Speaker 1: or two thousand, four hundred thirty eight meters. The GAPPA,
Speaker 1: as it was called g A p A, never saw
Speaker 1: active use in defense, but did serve as the basis
Speaker 1: for future missiles designed by Boeing. Also in nineteen six,
Speaker 1: Boeing agreed to supply two prototype aircraft designated XB forty
Speaker 1: seven to the Army Air Forces. This was a long
Speaker 1: range bomber design with six turbo jet engines, so jet engines,
Speaker 1: not propeller engines. It also had a swept wing design,
Speaker 1: which means the wings weren't at a straight ninety degree
Speaker 1: angle out from the body of the aircraft. The wings
Speaker 1: of the XB forty seven were angled back with respect
Speaker 1: to the aircraft's cockpits, so that's how most swept wing
Speaker 1: aircraft are. There are a few that actually have wings
Speaker 1: that are angled forward rather than backward. During World War Two,
Speaker 1: the German military had settled on swept wing designs for
Speaker 1: high speed aircraft. They found that they were more stable
Speaker 1: than could withstand the forces better than straight winged aircraft,
Speaker 1: so after the war those designs would find their ways
Speaker 1: into aircraft plans in the former Allied nations to clear
Speaker 1: the United States, and wind tunnel tests confirmed that the
Speaker 1: design was far more stable for high speed aircraft than
Speaker 1: the straight winged version, so that was the design for
Speaker 1: the XP forty seven. The engines of the XP forty seven,
Speaker 1: the nickname of which was the strato jet, we're in
Speaker 1: what we're called pods or nacells. These were suspended under
Speaker 1: the wings of the jet, and like I said, there
Speaker 1: were six engines. So on each wing you had two
Speaker 1: engines that were side by side in a single nay
Speaker 1: cell that was closest to the body of the aircraft,
Speaker 1: and then the third engine for that side was suspended
Speaker 1: toward the end of the wing. So it's a pretty
Speaker 1: funky looking bomber, And if you listen to my episode
Speaker 1: about jet engines, you'll remember that they're a little challenging
Speaker 1: to get going when you're on the ground. Once you're
Speaker 1: traveling at an appropriate speed through the air, the air
Speaker 1: rushing through the jet engines is sufficient for it to
Speaker 1: maintain operation. But at rest that doesn't work. So these
Speaker 1: XB forty seven jets had to have a little help
Speaker 1: when they needed to take off, and that help came
Speaker 1: in the form of eighteen rocket units in the fuselage,
Speaker 1: So those rockets would ignite for takeoff, and the XB
Speaker 1: forty seven would have what was called a jet assisted
Speaker 1: takeoff or jt J a t O. And the XB
Speaker 1: forty seven would also have to deploy a drag parachute
Speaker 1: to slow its speed when it was coming in for
Speaker 1: a landing. The XB forty seven became the model for
Speaker 1: the B forty seven bomber. That bomber only needed armament
Speaker 1: in the rear of the plane because it moved so
Speaker 1: fast that no fighter aircraft of the time could attack
Speaker 1: it from any angle but from behind. So the B
Speaker 1: forty seven would become the backbone of the new United
Speaker 1: States Air Force Strategic Air Command, which operated the bombers
Speaker 1: from nineteen fifty one to nineteen sixty. Now I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take another quick break, but when we come back, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about a few more aircraft that emerged in the
Speaker 1: years following World War Two, as well as Boeing's attempt
Speaker 1: to get into commercial jet airliners. Okay, so I mentioned
Speaker 1: the XB forty seven agreement happened in nineteen forty six.
Speaker 1: That same year, Boeing also landed a contract to design
Speaker 1: the B fifty two long range bomber. The B forty
Speaker 1: seven would have six engines. The B fifty two had eight,
Speaker 1: with engines paired up in nace cells. But that's not
Speaker 1: how the design first began. The original plan for the
Speaker 1: B fifty two was for it to be a six
Speaker 1: engine propeller bomber with a straight wing design. Those plans
Speaker 1: were obliterated in nineteen forty eight when a military officials said,
Speaker 1: now we want a jet powered bomber. So the design
Speaker 1: team that had been working on the B fifty two
Speaker 1: for two years pulled a crazy weekend shift to come
Speaker 1: up with an all new jet powered design with a
Speaker 1: swept wing approach. The Air Force ordered thirteen B fifty
Speaker 1: two S, and Boeing built three that were designated B
Speaker 1: fifty two A, but then converted production toward a new
Speaker 1: model called the B fifty two B. It followed the
Speaker 1: same design but had larger engines and could carry more weight.
Speaker 1: Between nineteen fifty two and nineteen sixty two, Boeing would
Speaker 1: produce seven hundred forty four B fifty two's later versions
Speaker 1: were more powerful and could fly further. The B fifty
Speaker 1: two H, first flown in nineteen sixty one, is an
Speaker 1: aircraft that, believe it or not, is still in service
Speaker 1: with the US military today, and it's expected to remain
Speaker 1: in service into the twenty fifties. That's a phenomenal aircraft.
Speaker 1: On the B fifty two also had a nickname. It
Speaker 1: was the Stratoh Fortress. Of course it was Bowing wasn't
Speaker 1: done with propeller aircraft either. It also built the L
Speaker 1: fifteen Scout, which was a short takeoff and landing aircraft
Speaker 1: with a single engine propeller engine. The company only made
Speaker 1: a dozen of them, which ultimately found their way into
Speaker 1: use in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Now,
Speaker 1: as we've seen in this episode, for many years, Boeing
Speaker 1: was relying heavily on military contracts for revenue. The conclusion
Speaker 1: of World War Two meant that those contracts were becoming
Speaker 1: less frequent. The company was eager to diversify and to
Speaker 1: find other means of generating revenue, and so we come
Speaker 1: to one of the more odd elements of Boeing's history,
Speaker 1: the introduction of a gas turbine engine for a truck.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty, so, in other words, a jet powered
Speaker 1: truck sort of. Boeing was partnered with another Seattle based company,
Speaker 1: the truck company Kenworth. The truck company had helped with
Speaker 1: Boeing's manufacturing runs early or during the war, and so
Speaker 1: Boeing outfitted a Kinworth truck with a one horsepower gas
Speaker 1: turbine engine. The gas turbine seemed to have some pretty
Speaker 1: clear advantages, at least on paper. It weighed a fraction
Speaker 1: of the traditional diesel engines that were used in large trucks.
Speaker 1: It could also accept lots of different kitents of fuel,
Speaker 1: including gasoline, diesel, and even kerosene. The engine was also smaller.
Speaker 1: It took up just thirteen percent of the same physical
Speaker 1: space as a diesel engine, But when it came to performance,
Speaker 1: the gas turbine engine just couldn't match the traditional diesel engines.
Speaker 1: The truck went on a test run, actually several test
Speaker 1: runs between Seattle and Los Angeles, and according to some reports,
Speaker 1: these trips were taking several hours longer than a run
Speaker 1: in a normal diesel truck. The performance was just lacking.
Speaker 1: The trucks couldn't accelerate really well, they were putting way
Speaker 1: too much exhaust out, and there was also a little
Speaker 1: issue with fuel economy. Uh it was down to a
Speaker 1: dismal one mile per gallon of fuel. Yikes. Boeing would
Speaker 1: continue to work on gas turbine engines for land vehicles
Speaker 1: and eventually landed a contract with a company called American
Speaker 1: La France, which put them into fire trucks. And the
Speaker 1: stories behind those were also pretty interesting, since it sounded
Speaker 1: like the cruise using those trucks had to find creative
Speaker 1: workarounds to compensate for the shortcomings of the engines. But
Speaker 1: they also said that they were really fun to operate,
Speaker 1: so I guess that's the tradeoff. Also in nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: Boeing submitted a proposal for the Baumark missile. This was
Speaker 1: a design that incorporated stuff that Boeing engineers had learned
Speaker 1: while making those GAPPA missiles back in nineteen six. The
Speaker 1: Bomark was the first long range anti aircraft missile in
Speaker 1: the world, and unlike GAPPA, this would be a missile
Speaker 1: that Boeing would actually mass produce. While World War Two
Speaker 1: was long over, the Cold War was really ram being up,
Speaker 1: and the U. S Military had deep concerns about the
Speaker 1: then Soviet Union's military capabilities, including the development of long
Speaker 1: range bombers that could potentially fly over the United States.
Speaker 1: The Bomark was meant to be a defense against those
Speaker 1: types of aircraft. The anti aircraft missile was a young
Speaker 1: enough technology that the Air Force didn't have a good
Speaker 1: way to designate it, so originally, the Bomark was referred
Speaker 1: to as an x F N nine, and the F
Speaker 1: and x F stood for fighter, as in Bomark was
Speaker 1: considered a pilotless aircraft, and fighters seemed to be the
Speaker 1: closest thing they could use to describe it now. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the Air Force would change its designation system and they
Speaker 1: renamed it the I M, with i AM standing for
Speaker 1: Interception Missile. Boeing would test the prototype of the Bomark
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty two and went into full production in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five. The missile had some rawbacks. The biggest
Speaker 1: one was that the earlier version of the missile relied
Speaker 1: on liquid rocket fuel, and that liquid rocket fuel was
Speaker 1: highly corrosive. Because of that, you couldn't pre fuel a
Speaker 1: missile before you had to use it. The fuel would
Speaker 1: actually corrode the interior of the fuel tank for that missile,
Speaker 1: making it unreliable or worse. So you had to hold
Speaker 1: off on fueling the things until it was time to
Speaker 1: use them. And the fueling process took about two minutes,
Speaker 1: and as you might imagine, every minute counts when you're
Speaker 1: potentially defending against an incoming aerial attack. So Boeing later
Speaker 1: addressed this problem by making a switch and they changed
Speaker 1: out the liquid rocket fuel motors with a solid fuel
Speaker 1: rocket booster that lowered the response time for the so
Speaker 1: called super Bowmark missile to less than thirty seconds. The
Speaker 1: company would produce five hundred seventy bo Mark missiles, which
Speaker 1: became part of a network called the Semi Automatic Ground
Speaker 1: Environment or SAGE. They were kept inside launch shelters and
Speaker 1: remote locations. You've probably seen stock footage of these things,
Speaker 1: where these these big hatches would open up and missiles
Speaker 1: would come out. It's that kind of stuff. But these
Speaker 1: weapons were mes defense measure against bombers aircraft flying overhead.
Speaker 1: As the focus would shift to intercontinental ballistic missiles, the
Speaker 1: usefulness of these older Beaumark missiles was determined to be
Speaker 1: somewhat limited, and the military chose to decommissioned them in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. Now I'm gonna end this episode with
Speaker 1: a project that Boeing started in nineteen fifty two. It
Speaker 1: was known as the three sixty seven eighty, also called
Speaker 1: the Dash eight. Boeing gave the project name the three
Speaker 1: seven eighty to disguise its real purpose because the name
Speaker 1: seemed to indicate that it was going to be a
Speaker 1: variant of the C nineties seven Strado freighter. But this
Speaker 1: was actually a project to explore the possibility of producing
Speaker 1: jet propelled commercial aviation aircraft. So one of the words
Speaker 1: passenger jets, and this wasn't a new idea. Bowing didn't
Speaker 1: invent this. In fact, the Boeing president of the time,
Speaker 1: Bill Allen, had been part of a group of Boeing
Speaker 1: executives that went to see a jet powered airliner called
Speaker 1: the Haviland Comment it flew in an air show in
Speaker 1: the UK. The Comment made its first test flight in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine, and it entered into commercial service in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two. The same year Boeing committed to exploring
Speaker 1: the possibility of getting into that same business in the
Speaker 1: United States. The dash A D took about two years
Speaker 1: from the launch of the project to the production of
Speaker 1: the first aircraft, and that first model three eighty, debuted
Speaker 1: on May fourteenth, nineteen fifty four. William Bowing himself, who
Speaker 1: was seventy two years old at that point, attended the event.
Speaker 1: The project had cost sixteen million dollars to fund. That
Speaker 1: represented about two thirds of Boeing's profits since World War Two,
Speaker 1: so this was a significant undertaking. The dash A D
Speaker 1: served as the basis for a new line of aircraft
Speaker 1: technically two lines of aircraft. Boeing even started to gear
Speaker 1: up to go into full production, even though it had
Speaker 1: not yet received a single order, either from the military
Speaker 1: or from an airline like pan Am. But the demonstration
Speaker 1: turned heads and before long the Air Force ordered a
Speaker 1: military version of the dash A D. This one would
Speaker 1: be called the k C one thirty five jet tanker
Speaker 1: the commercial side was a tougher cell. Bowing was up
Speaker 1: against its competitor Douglas. With much wheeling and dealing, Bowing
Speaker 1: sales reps were able to land a contract with pam
Speaker 1: AM to deliver twenty commercial versions of the Dash A
Speaker 1: D which would be known as the seven O seven.
Speaker 1: At the same time, PanAm had also put in an
Speaker 1: order for twenty five d C eight from Douglas, so
Speaker 1: Boeing's long term success in commercial jets was not yet assured.
Speaker 1: In our next episode, I'm going to continue looking at
Speaker 1: Boeing's history and commercial jets, as well as explore some
Speaker 1: of the technology behind the recent tragedies with the seven
Speaker 1: thirty seven Max, and we'll talk more about the different
Speaker 1: layouts and configurations of these aircraft. And uh, hopefully you
Speaker 1: guys are finding this interesting. I'm finding it fascinating. I've
Speaker 1: always heard bits and pieces about Boeing, but this is
Speaker 1: the first time I've taken a deep dive into their
Speaker 1: history and the various aircraft and technologies they've been uh
Speaker 1: instrumental in developing, And to me, it's pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: If you guys have suggestions for future topics of tech stuff,
Speaker 1: send me a message. You can email me at tech
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or dropped by
Speaker 1: our website that's tech stuff podcast dot com. You'll find
Speaker 1: an archive of all of our past episodes, as well
Speaker 1: as links to where we are on social media, and
Speaker 1: you also find a link to our online story or
Speaker 1: where every purchase you make goes to help the show
Speaker 1: and we greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Text Stuff is a production of I
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