Jetrader - May/June 2008 - 17

At 18 years old Joe entered the University of Washington in September 1939—exactly at the start of WWII in Europe. He studied aeronautical engineering and during his last two years of school he got his ﬁrst job at TBC as a summer hire for what he still remembers as a generous and princely salary of 62-and-a-half cents an hour. When Joe graduated he immediately went into the navy and served in both the Atlantic and Paciﬁc before mustering out in 1946. That year he was hired by Boeing to work in the aerodynamics staff. In his early years he worked on airplanes like the Stratocruiser, while observing work on leading edge technological innovations in airplanes like the highly swept wing B47 and later the B52. Joe’s ﬁrst commercial jet experience was, of course, the 707, and soon thereafter the 737. Few people know that he holds one of the design patents on the 737, an airplane that has sold more that 7,400 copies to date and still going strong. You can calculate in your own mind what part of a trillion dollars in revenue that has generated for the company. Joe will also fondly tell you that his royalties to date on that patent have amounted to a grand total of $50. The Trailblazer The recent shuttle launch reminds us of another one of Joe’s interesting assignments. Just two months before retiring from the company the shuttle Challenger exploded, and as a result President Reagan formed a commission to investigate the accident. Along with the likes of former Secretary of State William Rogers, Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, astronaut Sally Ride, and a few others with the “right stuff,” including Neil Armstrong and Chuck Yaeger, Joe was asked to be a member of the commission. At the time, the press was naming Joe the most respected aviation engineer in the world. For all of us, Joe is mostly known for his work on the 747. He was a young man in charge of a worldchanging airplane program. At the zenith of the design effort on the 747 Joe had more than 4,500 engineers and draftsmen reporting to him, and he was not yet a vice president in the company. But, before closing, I would like to tell you a short story of how modest Joe is about the accomplishment of building the 747—something that all the world admires. Joe and I were in London one time traveling in a taxi cab to Heathrow on our way to talk to British Airways about 747s. We were on the M4, and if the trafﬁc pattern is landing to the west dozens of 747s are passing overhead. And, as only two aerodynamics engineers can talk about airplanes, we got on to the early days of the 747 program. Joe looked at me and completely shocked me by saying, “You guys don’t really understand that I was Boeing’s second choice.” He went on to say that all the important guys in the company were working on the 2707 and only those that were left over went to the 747 program. Now, I’m certain you in ISTAT all know what the 2707 was, but for our foundation students who have never heard of the 2707 or William Proxmire, that is what was otherwise best known as the SST. Joe continued talking about how far more important the SST was to the company, saying that he used to meet with John Borger, Pan Am’s chief engineer on a regular basis in New York. Joe said, however, that was in the days of the two-martini lunch (or maybe three martinis), so Joe really liked to schedule his meetings with Borger in the morning when everyone was sharply focused. He said, “I would call John from Seattle and set the meeting, and it wouldn’t be a half hour later that Boeing’s chairman would call me up and bawl me out. The SST group had discovered what I had done and wanted the same morning meetings (because they knew about the martini problem as well).” The chairman continued to berate Joe and instruct him that he would have to give up the morning slot to the SST group because everyone knew the SST was the future of The Boeing Company and indeed the future of all commercial aviation. And I remember just at that moment in the taxi ride Joe leaned toward the window and looked up and asked, “You seen any SSTs out here lately?” And that says it all. You know when people look at aviation they say that we are part of a very glamorous business, and we ﬂy to very exotic places on very sophisticated machines. But I think you will all agree with me that truly the best part of this business is the people you meet and the close friends you make. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to the one very best persons that you can ever meet, a true gentleman in every sense of the word, the man who built the 747, the most respected aviation engineer in the world today—Joe Sutter. Jetrader 17

Jetrader - May/June 2008

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