Summary of Peter Robison's Flying Blind

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Boeing’s president, William Allen, was a board member for fifteen years before becoming president in 1945. He never traveled without Triscuits and two pairs of eyeglasses.
#2 Boeing was just one of many airplane manufacturers in a business that was dominated by strong-willed founders. The young companies were controlled by dominant, strong-willed founders like Donald Douglas in Los Angeles, Glenn Martin in Baltimore, and James McDonnell in St. Louis.
#3 The vertically integrated juggernaut was not to be. Airmail contracts became an early target of President Franklin Roosevelt’s new Democratic administration in 1933, and congressional investigators probed allegations of collusion in awarding them.
#4 The British plane maker De Havilland thought it had the right combination. The maker of a celebrated World War II propeller-driven bomber called the Mosquito, De Havilland was already building the world’s first commercial jetliner. But the public was not willing to accept so many fatalities in case of an accident.

Sujets

• Industrie

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669357537
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Peter Robison's Flying Blind
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Boeing’s president, William Allen, was a board member for fifteen years before becoming president in 1945. He never traveled without Triscuits and two pairs of eyeglasses.

#2

Boeing was just one of many airplane manufacturers in a business that was dominated by strong-willed founders. The young companies were controlled by dominant, strong-willed founders like Donald Douglas in Los Angeles, Glenn Martin in Baltimore, and James McDonnell in St. Louis.

#3

The vertically integrated juggernaut was not to be. Airmail contracts became an early target of President Franklin Roosevelt’s new Democratic administration in 1933, and congressional investigators probed allegations of collusion in awarding them.

#4

The British plane maker De Havilland thought it had the right combination. The maker of a celebrated World War II propeller-driven bomber called the Mosquito, De Havilland was already building the world’s first commercial jetliner. But the public was not willing to accept so many fatalities in case of an accident.

#5

The task of testing the new Dash 80 was given to a onetime barnstormer from Kansas named Alvin Tex Johnston. He got his nickname in the 1940s when he showed up in cowboy boots for a job with Bell Aircraft in Niagara Falls, New York.

#6

The jet age had begun. In those days, the leaders of airlines and the makers of aircraft saw themselves as standing at the gates of El Dorado, a term used by John Newhouse in his book The Sporty Game to describe the era’s optimism.

#7

Boeing was also competing with Douglas, which was releasing its own planes. The company needed to match them, so it released the three-engine 727 to compete.

#8

The Boeing 737 was born out of necessity. The company’s first successful sales meeting with Germany’s Lufthansa in 1965 didn’t have an auspicious start. The airline's board had to pry open a box containing charts and diagrams about the plane's performance.

#9

The Boeing 737 was introduced in 1967. It was low to the ground, allowing baggage handlers to easily toss in bags without a conveyor belt. It was a simple feature not unlike cranking down the window in an old car.

#10

Boeing’s second mistake was spending too much money on the 747, which almost bankrupted the company. The plane would become one of the most iconic in history.

#11

The first 747s were built in just sixteen months, right on through the moon landing. However, the company was two months from running out of money in 1969. In 1972, just fourteen of the planes were sold.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The first crash of a fully loaded wide-body plane was an international scandal, provoking newspaper coverage of shocking design lapses, televised congressional hearings, and even a full-length book exposé. The plane was a DC-10, a slightly smaller wide-body McDonnell Douglas had developed to keep up with Boeing’s 747.

#2

During the 1980s, Boeing was constantly adding new planes to its lineup, while its competitor Airbus was only just entering the commercial-jet market.

#3

Wilson was well paid, but he had little use for the trappings of corporate leadership. He kept bees and did crossword puzzles. Boeing had just a single small corporate jet and encouraged all but the most senior executives to fly commercial.

#4

Airbus, with huge subsidies from Germany and France, had been making inroads into the commercial market then dominated by Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed. The European consortium approached the market with messianic intent.

#5

The first of many times Boeing would underestimate its European competitor was in 1984, when Airbus began selling the 150-seat A320.