Bemedaled Pioneer

Of aviation trophies, three are famed. One is the Harmon Trophy, award of which fortnight ago made Wiley Post No. 1 airman of the year. Another is the Collier Trophy which annually rewards outstanding development in U. S. aeronautics. The third, and in some respects the most significant, is the Daniel Guggenheim Gold Medal which last week went to Board Chairman William Edward Boeing of potent United Aircraft & Transport Corp. First awarded in 1929 to Orville Wright, the Guggenheim Medal has gone each year to outstanding scientists in advanced aeronautical engineering. No aeronautical engineer is this year's winner, but a hard-headed industrialist who turned to flying as a hobby, began making airplanes as a whim and ended up by giving the world a new standard of aircraft performance. To him went the award for "successful pioneering and achievement in aircraft manufacture and air transportation." Son of a wealthy Michigan lumberman, "Bill" Boeing went to Yale, left to learn the logging business. Taught how to fly by Glenn L. Martin in 1915, he bought a machine, decided he could build a better one. In Seattle he established a one-room factory with 20 employes. Today, with more than 1,000 employes, his plane factory is one of the world's largest, has produced 53 types of military and commercial aircraft, including the famed three-mile-a-minute Boeing 247, likely candidate for this year's Collier Trophy. Hugely successful, his paper profits of $51,000,000 from an original investment of $487,119 made headlines last March when exposed by the Senate committee investigating ocean and airmail contracts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.