SW: I Started Boeing on February the 2"^, 1942. the Day After Pearl

SW: I Started Boeing on February the 2"^, 1942. the Day After Pearl

INTERVIEW WITH SID WEINER ERNEST STIEFEL, INTERVIEWER June 13,2001 ES: This is an interview with Sid Weiner at his beautiful home on Mercer Island. We're going to talk about two things. Number one, we're going to talk about his activities at Boeing and number two, his activities with regard to the rescue ofEthiopian Jews. My name is Ernie Stiefel and I am interviewing Mr. Weiner. Let's first start with Boeing. Mr. Weiner, how long have you been with Boeing? When did you start? What activities did you have? SW: I started Boeing on February the 2"^, 1942. The day after Pearl Harbor, which was December the 7^, 1941, my ex-roommate from Washington State College and I went down to join the Air Corps as navigators, but we both failed the eye examination. He decided to enlist in the Ajmy and I had just heard about Boeing that made airplanes in Seattle. I was living in Spokane where I grew up and knew absolutely nothing about airplanes. I had majored in civil engineering at Washington State College, which is Washington State University now, and was interested in building roads and buildings, which I have never done up to this point. So, I put in an application—was working after college for a few months at the Washington Water Power Company in Spokane as a research engineer. One of my fnends from Spokane, Manuel Shank and his brother Willie Shank, and I drove over to Seattle after I was accepted at Boeing at a fantastic monthly salary at $130. I took my pre-hiring physical, was accepted of course, and for about the first year did some basic engineering work that I found to be not very satisfying, quite boring. Margaret Kasper, my wife, and I, met in Spokane when we were both involved in the BBG groups. We had planned to get married in June of '43, but the Boeing Company asked me to go to Wichita in May, so we married on May 16^, 1943, the day that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising ended, which we didn't know until later. We went the next day for Wichita, Kansas, where the B-29's were being built. I worked in engineering tests there, preparing for the rollout ofthe first B-29. From that point till the end of the war in August of 1945,1 was fortunate enough to be assigned to a consulting organization for the Air Corps and became an expert on the B-17 and spent the rest of that effort prior to the end of the war with the Air Corps in the field at many different bases in the United States. I talked to every B-17 crew going overseas for about a year. We worked seven days a week, many hours of every day but it was very exciting and interesting and sad in some respects because there were numerous accidents, a lot ofthem fatal. At one base that I was at, in a period of three months, there were fourteen major accidents and seventy crew members killed. When the war ended, I returned to Seattle and worked on the Stratocruiser program for a couple years. That was a commercial airplane that was not very successful and one thing that taught Boeing was how not to work with the airline customers. We had a poor product. We didn't try to improve it 1 Interview with Sid Weiner - because it couldn't make any money and, as a result, most of the airlines were pretty unsatisfied and unhappy with the way that Boeing was handling the project. In February of 1948, I was asked to go to Dayton [Ohio]. At that time all the flight testing for the United States Air Force was done at Wright Field. By the way the last ofthe Wright Brothers died in 1948. Chuck Yeager, who was the first to break the sound barrier, I think in November of '47, was at Dayton at that time, as were all the top test pilots of the Air Force. I was the only Boeing person in charge of helping the Air Force test the B-50 which was the future airplane of the B-29 and was probably one of the worst products Boeing ever made. We made hundreds ofthem and the airplane had a horrible record. Also at that time, the C-97 was being tested there and the XB-47, the first jet bomber made by Boeing, was there. It was again a very interesting period for me because I got into all kinds of variations of effort in support of flight test. At that time and later, the Air Force was changing its major testing ground from Wright Field to Edwards Air Force Base in California. I knew Captain Edwards [in Dayton]. The[ new] field in California was named after him. He was killed in the last test flight of the B-49 Flying Wing. That was a very exciting time and in October of 1949, Boeing asked me to become their first representative at Strategic Air Command (SAC) Headquarters in Omaha. The Strategic Air Command was led by [General] Curtis LeMay, who was primarily responsible for success of the war in Europe and also the final war against Japan in the Far East. For some reason, he took a liking to me and we developed a tremendous relationship. He was undoubtedly one ofthe brightest military people in the history of this country and probably in the world. I had a tremendous amount of flying time with SAC going all over the world—^they had bases in all parts of the world. I helped again in working seven days a week, around the clock, for long, long periods of time, but it was very exciting. What was unusual is that General LeMay had the responsibility for implementing the United States War Plan, which was the first and probably only time the Air Force had that kind of responsibility. He was a tremendous military strategist and took pains in making sure that his crew members got the best opportunity for safety and all other kinds ofaccommodations during their careers. I spent the period from '49 to about '52 [in Omaha] and came back to Boeing. At that time I had no aerodynamic training. Boeing selected three people to get the MIT Masters Course in aerodjmamics given by the top aerodynamicists at Boeing. I was the third person selected—^the first was Herb dayman, who was also Jewish. That was a tremendous opportunity for me to find out some of the things I needed to know in order to advance at Boeing. From that point I went back to Washington, D.C., and I was there for a couple years representing Boeing with all of the areas in that region, including the Military Airlift Command. Then after staying in Washington for that time period, which was again very interesting but a marked difference in efficiency that I had foimd in SAC in Omaha, I returned to Strategic Air Command Headquarters for another year. General LeMay was still there but leaving to become the Air Force ChiefofStaff, ftie position he occupied under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Interview with Sid Weiner - After that year, which was not quite as stressful as the previous assignment, I returned to Boeing Seattle, I had been away with my family, which now included three children and my wife and my mother-in-law, and wanted to settle down for at least a bit. [I] became a part of the 707 Commercial Engineering Program that was originated by Maynard Pennell, who was one ofthe great engineers at Boeing and who was my mentor for many years. Just a tremendous person with great talents and human in all aspects. I started in a new group called Customer Engineering which was formed by Maynard Pennell to make sure that our commercial jets met the requirements ofthe airlines. And so over the next about six years, I worked on that project, negotiated the technical aspects of contracts with many airlines, including American, Pan American, TWA, Braniff, Continental, Western, El Al, the Irish Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, and many others. In about the middle of 1961, the Boeing Company started the Supersonic Transport Program and they asked me to head the Customer Engineering organization in that project, which included responsibility for all communication and contacts with the airlines, the U.S. government that was also involved, and the responsibility for building the full size mockup and other materials that was used to advise the airlines ofwhat we were doing. I stayed on that project from *61 to about '68. I resigned from that position. I felt that some ofthe top management misunderstood the abilities ofthe commercial airline people in determining what they needed to have a successful Supersonic Program. Soon after that project was cancelled, and to this day it has not been reestablished. I then worked on some classified, unmanned vehicles for the military at Boeing. I had given a briefing [on the US supersonic] at the request of Israel at their annual aerospace meeting in 1965, that was my first trip to Israel, and met Moshe Arens, who at that time, was head of engineering for Israel Aircraft Industries. He asked me to come over and help them build a commercial airplane. At first I gave it little thought, but about that time, with all the chaos associated with the tremendous layoffs in the late '60s, Margaret and I and our youngest child Robin went to Israel in 1970 and I managed an airplane program called the Arava for Israel for a couple years.

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