Renton 1965-1967 - Page 1 of 3 |
Bob
Bogash
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There
are certain places where folks need to go if they have an abiding
interest in something. Statue of Liberty. Hollywood.
Grand Canyon. Mecca. In 1965, if you liked jet airliners -
Mecca was in Renton, Washington, U.S.A. About 1958-59, Boeing 707 production was just cranking up when this P.R. photo of the first American 707 was taken on the Compass Rose at Renton. What's especially interesting (to me) is the completely vacant flight line in the background on the west side of Renton Airport. A few years later??? 707s and 727s filled every foot of the real estate as can be seen here: and here - in this fine Boeing photo Note: All the pictures on these webpages are mine, unless noted - with the exception of a few that are identified as Boeing. Like this beauty above! Notice anything about this picture? Look harder. I'll talk about it later..... Renton had a small airfield alongside the Boeing plant that churned out thousands of the world's greatest airplanes. It was built in support of WW II production - which turned out to be B-29s. A relatively short runway, yet just long enough to allow the airplanes built there to take off on their maiden flights. A few landed back at Renton, but most went on to Boeing Field for final tweaks prior to delivery to their customers. Boeing Renton with the Renton Airport runway hidden in the foreground It was incredible (to me - an airplane geek) - to be surrounded by so much aviation, so many drop dead gorgeous jetliners - and everywhere you turned too. Everywhere. I still thrill to driving past Renton (or Boeing Field or Everett) and seeing them lined up. Jets - Everywhere!!! My Dad was right - I should be paying them to work there.... Clearly, I've died and gone to Heaven. Jetliner Heaven!!! One of my first purchases was for a better camera. From 1951-1957 I used a box camera. My first real airplane picture - 1953 A Navion - I was 9 years old From 1957 - 1966, I used a 35mm Voightlander Vito-B. It was a big step up for me from my Box Camera. But.... The Vito-B had a
fairly slow max shutter speed which made it problematic shooting fast
moving objects - like airplanes (max was 1/200 second.) But
especially, it had a fixed 50mm lens which made it very difficult to
shoot larger objects like airplanes. It needed a wider lens - at
least 35 mm
So - I wound up with lots of "partial" airplane pictures like this one. Of course, it was a fixed focal length lens, and couldn't be Zoomed as we are used to today.
And - it couldn't be swapped out for a wider lens. So, the only way to Zoom was with your feet - stepping further and further back, until your subject was completely captured. Often, you couldn't step back far enough - like if an adjacent airplane was in the way. ... or the end of the dock.... It also had an offset viewfinder creating potential parallax issues and more partial and cutoff images. Still, I used it for many years and took some pretty nice pictures - like this 707 in 1959. In 1966, I bought a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic - an SLR or Single Lens Reflex.
It was a big step up for me and, allowing lenses to be changed, eventually allowed use of some new zoom lenses that were just coming out. The viewfinder saw through the lens so you always knew what you were going to capture. Light was metered - and right through the lens as well, so your exposures were much better. And the shutter speed went up to 1/1000 second. A camera does not make a "photographer" any more than a set of golf clubs make a "golfer." But better equipment certainly helped me a lot. I was able to take some better pictures - like this one: or many night pictures - which I enjoy taking, with good results. First Flights
Renton Airport - KRNT In the late 1980s, I had an office on the top 7th floor of an office building adjacent to the Renton Flight Line and runway. It was nick-named the Flashcube. Folks who met in my office became used to me stopping a meeting to watch a First Flight take-off, while waxing ecstatic, and giving them "the Bogey Speech." First Flights were Sacred events - analogous to the birth of a child. And, I believe airplanes are living. breathing things - and have souls. People not in the airplane business likely don't understand; they are the poorer for it. An airplane - any airplane - is a complex man-made machine that was born to live in the sky. And getting there is not easy. Behind every First Flight are years of hard work - by designers, aerodynamicists, mock-up and wind tunnel techs; factory mechanics and flight test people. After a new airplane model is tested and wrung out, each follow-on production airplane goes through a long birthing process - from the thousands of drawings and millions of parts that are fabricated by Boeing and outside suppliers, to the assembly, testing, painting, checking. A new airplane leaves the factory to be painted and then to the fuel pits to have the fuel system checked out; to engine run stands where it first begins to operate under its own power. To finally - the BIG DAY. Up until this point, it is just another machine - aluminum, steel, glass, rubber etc - not much different than a washing machine. But then - then, it becomes an airplane - something altogether different. Once the Flight Crew climbs in and starts up and performs their checks, they are transitioning to a system of TRUST - entrusting their lives to all of those others who came before them. All those thousands of steps. When the airplane roars down the short Renton runway, and the pilot pulls back on the stick, it's Game Time. Because of its short runway, 99.99% of all take-offs are FIRST FLIGHT take-offs. (Not so at Boeing or Paine Fields, where only some take-offs are First Flight.) So, when you see a jetliner take-off from Renton, you can be sure it's making its Maiden Flight. For safety and noise reasons, almost (but not all) take-offs are made to the North - over Lake Washington (instead of over downtown Renton.) In the old days, Boeing had a boat house with a crash boat that stood by for each take-off, in case an airplane wound up in the lake. I don't think they do that anymore. First, an airplane is pre-flighted by the ground and flight crews, then starts up and powers out from its "Pre-Flight" stall. The crew taxis it to the North (Lake) end, does a 180 and applies take-off power accelerating to approximately take-off speed - then abruptly applying the brakes and thrust reversers to stop before reaching the South (Renton) end. This constitutes the last minute "Safety Check", validating that the airplane can safely stop during its actual take-off run should some problem arise calling for an abort (RTO - Refused Take Off.) Arriving at the South end, the airplane does another 180, and if all is OK, commences its very first take-off run. First Flight. At the pre-calculated speed, the pilot pulls back on the stick, the nose rises..... and the airplane lifts off. Tens, even hundreds of thousands of pounds of weight climb away from the ground into a different realm. The Magic of Flight! It never gets old. Not for me. I tried to determine first flight skeds and tried to be present for those that took place over the week-end. Saw many and photographed many. Always a thrill. Still a thrill. (Was even a bigger thrill when I made the First Flight on my own airplane - one that I had built!) In the fueling pits On the Pre-Flight Line - ready to power out of the stall Last stopping tests North to South On the Roll The Moment of Truth An empty parking spot flanked by her yet-to-fly siblings For she is now an airplane, not a machine - and is in her new home - the Sky. Some more First Flights..... Never gets old
The Road to Renton - A bit of Personal History
In the early 1960s, while I was attending engineering school at RPI in upstate New York, I worked summers as an Intern at Douglas Aircraft in Los Angeles. I wrote to Boeing and asked if I could stop and visit. Pretty audacious, as I think back. They said "Sure!" So, on my way back to school in September 1963, I stopped at the Boeing plant for three days and decided Boeing was where my career path lay. I was amazed at their hospitality - I was just a teen-ager at the time, yet they treated me like an airline president. Michael Gladych picked me up at the airport and for 3 days I was taken back and forth between the Boeing facilities and my hotel (the YMCA on 4th Ave - I had no money), and was given freedom to take lots of pictures where ever I wanted. I've been taking them all my life. Renton was still cranking out KC-135s at the time Maybe 45 years later, I found out that Michal Gladych's nickname was Killer Mike and he was a Polish fighter pilot Ace who flew for the RAF in WW II. Like so many of that Generation of heroes - who knew? He actually flew for the Polish AF, French, Brits and Americans during the War and shot down about 20 enemy planes, but nobody knows the real number. Click here to read his remarkable story. E3 - the third 727.... and me. Skinny tie, skinny me, and dark hair. My employment at Boeing was almost a non-event. I had interviewed with them at school but heard nothing back through the Summer of 1965, and after considering job offers from Pratt & Whitney in Hartford and Grumman on Long Island, had accepted a flight test position with Grumman. I had even taken their job physical and had a report date when Boeing finally came through in late summer with an offer. I guess I was the bottom of the hiring barrel. After much soul searching, I had to send Grumman a Dear John. My goal in life was to become a professional pilot, but both the airlines and the military demanded 20/20 vision uncorrected, and mine was nowhere near. More like Seeing Eye Dog level. But test flying was an option - with an engineering degree and a pilot's license, Boeing offered a possible path - I was hopeful.... I had ordered a brand new 1965 Ford Mustang - metallic green - in honor of my graduation, but got advised at the last minute that the factory had switched over to the 1966 models and my car wouldn't get built. So I wound up loading all my worldly possessions in a beater 1958 Olds 98 and headed 3000 miles for Seattle. I've mentioned many times in my other webpages how easy Ramp access was in the "Good Old Days." Renton Airport certainly offered the aviation fan the opportunity to take some great photos of airplanes in many liveries. In Fall 1966, I splurged again - this time on a new car.
A 1967 Dodge Coronet Station Wagon -- and there's the Dealer - Renton Dodge right behind the Flight Line on Rainier Avenue. That's how intimate airplanes were. I posed my new car for a picture right on an empty stall on the Flight Line! I got a station wagon because I went camping a lot and could sleep in the back. Found an apartment in a new cluster called The Talisman that was in Rainier Beach at the intersection of Rainier Ave and S. Henderson. A bunch of other young Boeing engineers were neighbors. That area has changed dramatically over the years. When I drove by about 15 years later, I found it surrounded by fences, then razor wire, later boarded up, and now torn down - just a vacant lot. My first week at Boeing was spent in the basement of the First Methodist Church in the Renton Highlands. Boeing had rented the church's classrooms and was giving courses to new-hire engineers; they were on a hiring spree. Those are usually followed by Layoff sprees. It was there in the church that I learned how to navigate the Boeing systems, read drawings etc. That place is still there - some fairly recent pictures. My first job at
Boeing was in Commercial Pubs - writing Maintenance Manuals for the
707/727/737. The Manuals were divided into Sections, and mine were
ATA 28 Fuel, 49 APU, and the 70-82 Sections which covered
Powerplant. Not very glamorous, but I enjoyed my time there and
learned a lot. Eventually it got me in the Left Seat of the Number
One 737 to do the first engine runs with another engineer named Sid
Kent. Click here for that whole story.
Dan Parks was the Manager in charge and Roy Lundberg was my
Leadman. Both were true Gentlemen; I wrote a webpage about Roy
which you can find by clicking here. In it I say:
...he got me started off on the right track, and taught me many important lessons about the virtues of hard work and a job well done. In many ways, I am who I am because of Roy Lundberg. Roy Lundberg God Bless You, Roy. But - by the Spring of 1966, it was time to move out on my ambition - to fly for Boeing. I was continuing to build flying hours - first flying Piper Cherokees out of Ed's Airmotive at the SE corner of Renton Airport, and then later Cessna 150s out of Renton Aviation at the NW corner. Even took Roy for a ride. Neither airplane were real stepping stones, but I decided to move along one step at a time. I went to see Marvin "Schully" Schullenberger - Chief Flight Engineer. He had made the first flight in the 727. Schully in foreground at Flight Engineer's panel Lew Wallick and Dix Loesch up forward. First Flight Boeing 727 - February 1963 Schully listened to my story and agreed to give me a job as a Flight Engineer working in Flight Test and Flight Crew Training. BUT - there was one proviso - that I had to have a Flight Engineer's License. I found a place - Northwest School of Aviation - at Boeing Field, that offered the needed training. And so, despite just 6 months on the job, I went to my bosses and asked if they would give me a 6 week Leave of Absence to go back to school and get my F/E License. Even though that may have meant they would lose me to their organization, they agreed. Six weeks later, I graduated as a newly minted Flight Engineer. F/E Licenses come in two flavors - Recip (Piston Engine) and Turbojet. The school only offered Recip training, and had an agreement with PNA (Pacific Northern Airlines) at SeaTac. I was trained on the Douglas DC-6A and the Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation. Schully understood that and said Boeing would get me the Turbojet Rating. So - we turn to one of the pictures above. What did you notice? Yup - no engines! Well, in 1966, the Viet Nam War was going in full swing. The JT8D engines used on the 727 shared many parts with the military J-57, which was widely used on military aircraft. Pratt & Whitney, the manufacturer was having a hard time keeping the military supplied - and in especially short supply were engine compressor/turbine shaft bearings made by Timken. Pratt was not shipping engines to Boeing, and so that picture shows a flight line full of airplanes without engines. There are many more pix like that throughout this photo essay. Eventually, Boeing wound up with maybe 50 airplanes without engines. They did have one set of engines however, and used them to ferry airplanes from Renton to Boeing Field one by one. What all this meant to me was that when I returned after schooling with my new F/E License, The Boeing F/E job had evaporated. There was no flying and hence no need for more, new Flight Engineers. I went back to my Maintenance Manual job and began looking around for different opportunities. After striking out with Prater Hogue in Accident Investigation (my natural bent), I scored with Andy Jones in Field Service. I had been down in Portland (2 Apr 1966) and while waiting for my return DC-9 flight to BFI, I observed a fire break out on the external electrical power connection to a Northwest 707 parked at the gate. Rather boldly, I went down to the airplane, identified myself as a Boeing engineer (Big Deal!), and gathered data and took pictures. The Northwest 707 electrical fire in PDX that may have started my Field Service career. When I got home, I wrote up a detailed FSR (Field Service Report) - as if I was in the Field - and submitted it to Andy. I don't know if that made any difference or not (he later told me getting the F/E License really impressed him), but I got a job offer and transferred to Field Service. Andy Jones - one fine man Initially I worked with other either former FSE's, or guys who were on rotation between assignments - folks like Don McCann, Don Shake, Bill Collins and little Dick Owens (the magician.) Eventually, Andy got me assigned temporarily as a Liaison Engineer in Manufacturing, assigned to accompanying the Number One 737 through its assembly - first at Plant II, then at the Thompson Site, and finally during its Flight Test program at Boeing Field. This I did for the next 16 months - often working alongside two experienced old hands - Al Kernick and John Ramsey. They told me spell-binding stories about being Reps with the 8th Air Force in England during the War, and the problems they had on the B-17G chin turret, and cracks in the hinges on the bomb bay doors. They had been around the block a few times! Much of that time, I worked Swing Shift - working 10 hour days from 4:00 PM to 2:00 AM - seven days a week. On December 15, 1967, the airplane was Certified by the FAA, and I headed to New York for my first assignment to help introduce the first 737 airplanes into service with United and Piedmont. In NY, I worked under the tutelage of another fine engineer and manager - Marley Falconer. And if, you think I describe too many of these people as "Fine" - it's because they were! I have been blessed in my life, and in my career, and one of those Blessings was to work with people who were smart, hard-working and fine human beings. I thank them all. In order to keep the page size and loading time under control, I've split Renton in three, with many more airplane photos you're looking for found here: Renton - Photo Page 2 - 707s Renton - Photo Page 3 - 727s |
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