299

Out of a Seattle workshop for all the world to see was trundled last week the hulk of the largest and most deadly airplane ever built in the U. S. Boeing Aircraft Co., after a year of secret construction, had finally assembled the giant four-motored bomber which it had manufactured for the U. S. Army under the contract name of 299.

Almost as big as the Sikorsky and Martin transoceanic Clipper ships, the new Boeing is said to weigh 30,000 Ib. loaded, carry six tons of bombs, have a top-speed of 250 m.p.h., a ceiling of 25,000 ft., a range of 2,500 mi. without refueling. Actual performance figures were secret.

A low-wing monoplane with retractable landing gear, the new bomber is of three-ply all-metal construction. It is powered with four 800-h.p. Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasps--first Army or Navy craft to have more than three motors. The motors are two to a side, streamlined into the high- camber cantilever wing. While the Boeing's fuselage is designed to carry bomb-racks, it would need but slight modification to become a commercial airliner.

Supervising designer of the new Boeing is modest Claire Egtvedt, Boeing's $20,000-a-year president. Claire Egtvedt got his taste for flying as a young ski-jumper in Wisconsin, followed it up with a course in aeronautical engineering at the University of Washington's Guggenheim School.

He took a job as draftsman for Boeing in 1917, nearly got fired when he worked out in his head an answer to a problem which agreed with no one else's. When his answer proved right he rose rapidly to assistant chief engineer, chief engineer, secretary, vice president and general manager. Year ago he succeeded Founder William Edward Boeing as president. Married, he has no children, flies his own plane to hideaway lakes for fishing.

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