Queen Lear

Family fight over a new Jet

Even in death William Powell Lear is still generating turbulence. As the holder of 126 patents, Lear made a fortune and, amid considerable bitterness, bailed out of two of his most ambitious ventures. In 1962 he left Lear, Inc. after the board of directors turned down his demands that the aircraft-instrumentation firm build jets. In 1967, when sales initially failed to take off, he sold Lear Jet Industries Inc. to the Gates Rubber Co. Two years before he died of leukemia in 1978 at age 75, Lear started a new firm, LearAvia, in Reno, to manufacture a turboprop corporate jet that he had designed. On his deathbed, Lear asked his wife Moya, now 65, and Company President Samuel Auld, 55, to use the proceeds from his estimated $100 million estate to complete work on the Lear Fan 2100.

The project, however, soon ran into headwinds from two of Lear's daughters. They are disputing their father's will, saying that the trustees, Auld and Real Estate Developer Milton Weilenmann "brought undue influence" on a sick man to have the new plane completed. The heiresses declare that the risks of the venture are too great for their mother to use their portion of the inheritance on it.

According to its boosters, the Lear Fan could well reshape general aviation technology. The lightweight airframe is made from rolls of graphite mixed with epoxy resin wrapped around molds like vinyl wallpaper and then baked under pressure in an oven the size of a boxcar. The unpainted fuselage looks like a black plastic drainpipe but it is as tough as titanium; only carbide-tipped drills can cut through it. Pratt & Whitney engines concealed in each side of the plane drive the distinctive 90-in. propeller sticking out of the back of the plane. Because it weighs only 3,850 Ibs., the plane uses one-fifth as much fuel as the current Lear jet, and cruises at 350 m.p.h. for 2,300 miles on a tankful. Though delivery is two years away, 127 planes are already on order.

Moya Olsen Lear, now chairman of Lear Avia, is the inventor's fourth wife and the mother of four of his seven children. She was introduced to Lear by her father, Ole Olsen, who was half of the Olsen and Johnson comedy team. Despite Lear's well-known womanizing, they stayed married for 36 years. Moya concentrated on her needlepoint and listened to Lear's descriptions of his latest inventions. Once she stitched the names of her husband's girlfriends and presented the needlepoint to him in a frame. One name was in purple because Mrs. Lear thought she was "the most elegant and imperial of the lot." Yet Mrs. Lear says today: "My whole life was devoted to Bill. After he died I had the sleeping pills ready, but I got caught up with this project."

The new Queen Lear leaves the actual running of the company to Auld and his managers, but she participates in all the meetings and describes her role as being the firm's den mother. Says Auld: "She's here to validate the project with customers, vendors and the industry."

Moya Lear has also helped attract financing for the new plane. In April the British government extended Lear Avia $50 million in grants and guaranteed bank loans so the firm could convert a former air force base in Belfast into production facilities. The company raised another $30 million in venture capital through Wall Street's Oppenheimer & Co. Auld notes proudly that he has not used any money from the children's trust fund on the plane's development since January. This makes Moya Lear feel a little better, but she still murmurs wistfully, "How I would love to hear them just say: 'Go, mother, we'll support you!'"

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