101122 - THE WILLIAM E BOEING STORY: A Gift of Flight by David Williams

By David Williams

• The Boeing family gave author David Williams unrestricted access to the Boeing Family archives
• This treasure trove of primary sources allowed Williams to create an extraordinary vivid and accurate portrait of this influential yet private man
• Boeing’s story is an exciting one: full of bootleggers, kidnappers and shady politicians
• William Boeing did much more than build airplanes; he was a logger, miner, cattle rancher and philanthropist
• Beautifully illustrated with many rare and unpublished images from the Boeing family archives

The William E. Boeing Story – A Gift of Flight is the first ever full-length biography of William E. Boeing, the father of commercial aviation.

Boeing’s story is an exciting one complete with bootleggers, kidnappers and a disastrous run in with President Franklin Roosevelt and future Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.

Boeing’s story covers every aspect of early aviation starting with his first ride in a balloon in 1896 to the christening of the revolutionary jet powered Dash-80/707 in 1955. Along the way, Boeing developed some of the world’s most iconic airplanes including the P-26 Peashooter, the Boeing 247, the B-17 Flying Fortress and the mighty B-29 Superfortress.