Boeing engineers and technologists envisioned and designed products that changed life in the 20th century. Look for them to do more amazing things the next 100 years.

BY WILLIAM COLE

What do a climber lost in the Himalayas, a family flying to Europe for a vacation, and a hurricane victim in Puerto Rico have in common? They live in a world made better—and safer—by Boeing engineers and technologists.

Consider how Boeing experts have changed the way people work, travel and relax. Guided by satellites 10,900 miles above Earth, the lost mountaineer can find his or her bearings with the now-commonplace Global Positioning System built and launched by Boeing. Today, even motorists are guided to their destinations by GPS.

The family going on vacation to Europe is flying on a 777 twin-aisle jetliner designed and built by Boeing employees in Everett, Wash. Technology advances and streamlined production processes have made overseas travel safer, faster and more affordable and routine for travelers around the world.

The C-17 Globemaster III military transport plane, designed and built by employees in Long Beach, Calif., has rescued Americans from war-torn Liberia and dropped vital supplies to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean. C-17s also played key roles in Operation Enduring Freedom, the military response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and, subesequently Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The 20th century saw the introduction and refinement of spacecraft, and incredible advancements in commercial and military aircraft. Boeing engineers and technologists were involved in all of them.

"Boeing engineers and technologists shrank the world and brought people together in the 20th century," said Dave Swain, chief operating officer for Integrated Defense Systems, a 39-year veteran of Boeing and an established advisor to both government and industry on aerospace issues. "What they did was nothing short of miraculous."

During the last 30 years, Boeing engineers and technologists have made space travel possible. They designed and produced the vehicles that pioneered the first orbits around Earth, landed Americans on the moon and brought them home safely. Today, engineers are sending cameras and instruments to probe the farthest reaches of the universe. They are working on the next generation of reusable launch vehicles. And astronauts aboard the International Space Station are conducting experiments that could someday save millions of people from serious disease.

Boeing employees have opened the world to travelers of all nations. Each day, 3 million passengers board 42,300 flights on Boeing commercial jetliners. As they travel, they can work on laptops, watch movies or listen to music. Soon they will be able to surf the Internet and access e-mail aloft.

Military aircraft that Boeing employees helped design and build played a major role in winning World War II, and today are playing a major role in defending freedom—and delivering help—around the world. Large-scale systems-of-systems are creating a new integrated battlespace that will shorten conflicts and protect allied forces. Advanced unmanned systems will carry out many of the dangerous, dull and dirty missions of future conflicts.

But the story of Boeing innovations doesn't end with the 20th century. Thanks to forward-thinking engineers and technologists, Boeing will play a crucial role in how people will communicate, travel, and defend their nations in the future.

A HISTORY OF INGENUITY AND PERSISTENCE

Shakespeare wrote that what's past is prologue. Boeing's past achievements provide a solid foundation for its future. Nevertheless, some of the company's greatest engineering triumphs had humble beginnings.

The legendary B-52 bomber, for example, was conceived in 1948 in a Dayton, Ohio, hotel. Six Boeing engineers were stung when U.S. Air Force representatives, unimpressed with their proposal for a long-range turboprop bomber, sent them packing. But instead of giving up, the engineers bought balsa wood, glue and a knife at a local hobby shop and returned to their hotel. There, they fashioned a model of a jet-powered superbomber, spent a couple of bleary nights completing a 33-page proposal, and went back to their customer. The Air Force was delighted with the new concept. The B-52 was born and is still in service. And Boeing still proudly displays in its archives in Seattle the balsa-wood plane that started it all.

Similar ingenuity produced the heroic P-51 Mustang of World War II fame. North American Aviation engineers created the aircraft after their customer, the British Purchasing Commission, instructed them to buy the Curtiss Company design data for the P-40 and replicate it for the Royal Air Force. Lee Atwood, the legendary engineer, did indeed pay $56,000 for the data, but he didn't even take the blueprints out of the box. He and his team had a better idea, one that would not only meet but also exceed the requirements. The team built the far-superior Mustang, which went on to claim more than half the enemy aircraft shot down over Europe during World War II.

"Those engineers were absolutely dedicated," said Erik Simonsen, Boeing historian and Air Force Systems communications manager. "They were the kind who would not be deterred by short-term disappointments on their way to their ultimate goal: to build an aircraft that was better than anything else existing at the time."

McDonnell engineers discovered the truth of Henry Ford's theory that much of success counts on being prepared. Because they had researched and developed technologies for an unsolicited manned spacecraft a full year before NASA invited bids for the Mercury program, McDonnell won the contract and earned a leading role in the space race.

McDonnell engineers exhibited another attribute commonly promoted at leadership seminars: the ability to learn from failure. In the early 1950s, they turned a rejection of their twin-engine variant of the F3H Demon into a masterpiece: the F-4 Phantom II. After the Pentagon turned down the twin-engine proposal, McDonnell engineers went out to talk to U.S. Navy pilots to find out exactly what their dream plane would be. Using that information and its own money, McDonnell submitted a new, unsolicited proposal. The Navy was impressed, and in 1954 it ordered two F-4 prototypes. The Phantom's performance and reliability were so good that it served simultaneously with the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, as well as for several allied countries. It was a combat workhorse in Vietnam.

"Today, we'd call that "thinking outside the box,'" said Larry Merritt, Boeing St. Louis historian. "These engineers were true innovators who were encouraged to think differently in freewheeling brainstorming sessions. They went in directions that nobody else had taken before."

THE PIONEERS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

Engineering achievements by the companies that now constitute Boeing have dazzled the world for 95 years.

"Boeing engineers and technologists applied their knowledge and skills to convert matter and energy into things that are tremendously useful to humanity," Swain said, "things that make our lives more comfortable, more enjoyable, healthier, safer and more secure. Boeing engineers and technologists will help shape the world in the 21st century. This will require tremendous innovation. But once we dream it, we can build it. Why? Because we employ some of the brightest people on the planet."

Mike Lombardi, Boeing chief historian, said Boeing engineers have triumphed because they refuse to be influenced by naysayers.

"They are the pioneers of doing the impossible and making it commonplace," he said. "The skeptics told us that the 747 would never get off the ground. They told us that putting a man on the moon was impossible. Well, the 747 has flown 35 billion statute miles, enough to make 74,000 trips to the moon and back. And we not only put men on the moon, the Boeing heritage companies built the first, second, and third stages of the Saturn V booster rocket, the Saturn engines, the Apollo vehicle, and, later, the Lunar Rover. That can-do spirit will mark the next 100 years. We're venturing into new territories with new technologies. And this is just the start. We can do anything we want to do."

The Boeing Company, once called a "scrappy innovator" by The Wall Street Journal, is doing just that: taking another chance on the future.

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

The Boeing tradition of bold innovation continues into the 21st century. The company set its sights on being part of the global economy, and it is already there. Boeing Air Traffic Management is introducing revolutionary concepts to solve the congestion problems that come with expanded travel. Connexion by Boeing is creating an office in the sky for airline passengers.

Boeing engineers are also blending platforms and other products into large systems-of-systems to create an integrated battlespace. The U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems, for example, integrates networked information and communications systems to offer an advantage to soldiers in the field and commanders in the control room. It also features a combination of manned and unmanned systems, airplanes, tanks, vehicles, and intelligence-gathering drones and robotic systems that improve survivability while reducing the time and cost of combat operations.

And Boeing is leveraging its core competencies and intellectual capital to provide safer, more affordable air travel to the world in such airplanes as the 7E7 Dreamliner.

In conversations with engineering students, Swain often discusses nanotechnology, a process for building systems at the molecular level. He predicts that engineers will soon bring to the world devices that were once the stuff of science fiction: materials with integrated sensors that allow products to "heal" themselves, military systems-of-systems that could end conflicts in just hours with no loss of life, and transportation systems that could take tourists into space. Boeing technology leaders are working on X-vehicle programs that could lead to scramjet-powered travel at speeds of up to Mach 10. And one day people may be using personal air vehicles much as they use cars today.

THE NEXT GENERATION

To make these dreams come true, Boeing now must develop a generation of engineers and technologists who can meet the new challenges of the 21st century.

"We have to talk about our accomplishments and what our products mean in a world setting," Swain said. "We need to convince this next generation of engineers that they can help make Earth a better place to live. We have to make sure that the future is in good hands.

"In the long run, despite business fluctuations, we have to believe that engineering is going to be as important and exciting in this century as it was in the last.

"We are at the dawning of a new age."