Flying Blind

Schairer examined in the files showed a massive increase in speed and performance when wings were made to point slightly back, particularly when the engines hung beneath the wings in pods rather than being nested inside them, as had been the custom. The arrangement compensated for drag by making the wing itself more flexible in meeting wind resistance. Schairer sent seven cramped pages of mathematical formulas and sketches to a colleague in Seattle.

 

The timing was good; Boeing was then in the midst of a competition with three other manufacturers to build a jet-powered bomber for the U.S. Army Air Forces. The others soon got access to the same German data, but they all opted for fixed-wing designs, and Boeing won the contract for the B-47, whose mission was the rapid delivery of nuclear bombs to targets in the Soviet Union.

 

At $3 million apiece, the B-47 was the most expensive plane Boeing had ever built when it entered production in 1951. More importantly, the contract would give Boeing a crucial head start in technology that could serve as the basis of long-distance travel for generations to come--if the company chose to take such a gamble.

 

 

 

Boeing s president, William Allen, didn t have the appearance of a bold man of action. Before taking the top job in 1945, he d been the company s chief lawyer and a board member for fifteen years. He never traveled without Triscuits and two pairs of eyeglasses. The night he became president, he jotted a series of resolutions into his diary. Among the promises he made to himself, in addition to daily sit-up exercises: Be considerate of my associates views ; Don t talk too much, let others talk ; Make a sincere effort to understand labor s viewpoint ; and Develop a postwar future for Boeing.

 

Douglas Aircraft, in Long Beac

of quality in favor of quick bucks literally knocked airplanes out of the sky. As you turn each page in growing disbelief and anger, I guarantee it will keep you reading late into the night.
Kurt Eichenwald, New York Times bestselling author of Conspiracy of Fools and The Informant

Peter Robison's compelling and richly reported Flying Blind is about so much more than the sad decline of Boeing and the tragic mistakes that led to the 737 Max disaster. It's also the urgent story of how the almighty profit motive supplanted a culture of engineering excellence in boardrooms across America and the avoidable calamity that has impacted all of us as a result.
Brad Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Amazon Unbound and The Everything Store

Peter Robison's Flying Blind is the astoundingly well reported and beautifully told story of the downfall of what was once a great American company.  Robison, who got to know Boeing in the late 1990s as a beat reporter, watched as the proud engineering culture was decimated by those who cared first and foremost about making money.  The details are unique, but what makes this book a must-read is that the story's theme has become all too common.
Bethany McLean, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Smartest Guys in the Room

"Flying Blind is a gripping narrative and required reading for anyone who wants to understand how one of America s mightiest corporations veered so badly off course."
Sheelah Kolhatkar, New Yorker staff writer and New York Times bestselling author of Black Edge

"A startling investigation of the corporate blunders behind the tragedies that claimed the lives of 346 passengers."
Sunday Times (UK)

Chilling...A vital and enraging portrait of an avoidable tragedy.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A remarkable look at corporate culture's impact on consumer safety, Flying Blind is a captivating and unsettling portrait of Boeing and American business."
Booklist (starred review)

"[A] revealing exposé A damning, highly readable account of a once-great company brought to its knees by bad leadership."
Kirkus

"A gripping tale...Robison s fast-paced account serves as an excellent case study of business mismanagement...and will have broad appeal as a story about the rise and fall of a historic business."
Library Journal (starred review)

[Robison] avoids simple explanations or scapegoats. His story focuses on two major shifts: one is the evolution of Boeing over the course of the last half-century . the second is a political and business climate that became increasingly hostile to assertive federal regulation. Robison convincingly depicts the story of the 737 MAX as the culmination of these trends, but he ultimately resists the sort of pat causal explanations that many including the government itself have used to try to describe what happened.
The New Republic

"A convincing and unsettling business narrative that reconstructs the decisions leading up to two tragic Boeing 737 plane crashes."
Shelf Awareness (starred review)