Selling Airplanes

In 1955, Boeing was betting the company. The Dash 80 — prototype for the 707 — had cost $16 million to develop, nearly every dollar of profit Boeing had earned since World War II. Bill Allen, the Boeing president, needed to convince the world's airline executives that big jets were safe; the British de Havilland Comet had been falling apart at altitude and the public was nervous. The 1955 IATA convention happened to coincide with Seafair, Seattle's annual hydroplane races on Lake Washington. Allen invited every airline VIP to a chartered boat on the lake and asked Tex Johnston, his chief test pilot, to do a simple flyby. Tex was a Kansas-born cowboy who wore Stetsons and tooled-leather boots and had once been the inspiration for Slim Pickens' character in Dr. Strangelove. On August 7, 1955, in front of 250,000 spectators, he came in over Lake Washington at 200 feet, 490 miles per hour. And he rolled the 248,000-pound airliner upside down. Then, because he didn't think anyone would believe it, he turned around and did it again in the opposite direction. Allen, on the boat, turned to Larry Bell of Bell Aircraft (who carried heart pills) and said, "Give me one of those damned pills. I need it worse than you do." The next morning Johnston was summoned to Allen's office. Allen: "What did you think you were doing yesterday?" Johnston: "Selling airplanes." He was. Pan Am ordered 20 within a month. More than 1,000 707s were built. The KC-135 tanker variant is still flying for the Air Force. Eddie Rickenbacker reportedly told Allen at dinner that night, "Bill, that's the way to get attention with a new airplane."