The Story of the Boeing Company Hardback

Available to the trade for the first time - including up-to-date information on the new 7E7.

In the early years of the twentieth century William Edward Boeing summed up his new company's mission: "To let no new improvement in flying and flying equipment pass us by." And sure enough, in the century since, nothing and no one has outflown Boeing.

The Story of the Boeing Company, plane-maker to the world, unfolds on a fittingly grand scale in this book that is at once the history of one company and the story of an industry.

Aviation author Bill Yenne follows Boeing from its modest beginnings in 1916 as Pacific Aero Products, with a single two-seater floatplane, to its present lofty position as the largest aerospace company in the world.

Lavishly illustrated, "The Story of the Boeing Company" showcases the historic aircraft that made the company's name - from the B-17s and B-29s of World War II to the 707 Jetliner that revolutionized commercial flight; from the mammoth 747 to the B-52 Superfortress that still soldiers on over 50 years after its debut. Yenne describes the moves and mergers that have brought together in one corporation four of the most important and influential companies in aerospace history - Boeing itself, Rockwell International, McDonnell, and Douglas - and recast Hughes Space and Communications, the world's largest maker of communication satellites, as Boeing Satellite Systems.

He tells the story of these aviation pioneers' shared legacy, detailing milestones like the Douglas World Cruisers that completed the first around-the-world flight; the Boeing B-17 and B-29 and the North American Aviation P-51 of World War II; the Douglas DC-3, probably the most influential propliner in history; the Boeing 707 and 747 that defined the jetliner era; and every American spacecraft that has carried astronauts into space.

Finally, "The Story of the Boeing Company" looks to the future, with an absorbing account of the new 787 "Dreamliner" program.