Peter Bowers

Peter M. Bowers (born May 15, 1918 in San Francisco , California , † April 27, 2003 in Seattle , Washington ) was an aviation journalist and engineer .

Bowers came into contact with aviation early on. He first built model airplanes and began taking photographs of airplanes. He attended the Boeing School of Aeronautics in Oakland and graduated successfully. In 1941 he was able to sell photos to Jane's All the World's Aircraft for the first time . In 1943 he went to the USAAF and served as a warden in China , Burma and India, among others . He became head of a military program that made aircraft easier to recognize and identify. In 1947 he left the army and learned to fly. He was able to accumulate around 8,000 flight hours by the time he died. He developed a self-made aircraft, the Bowers Fly Baby , which won the Experimental Aircraft Association developer award in 1962 and of which around 5,000 copies were built.

Bowers became famous for his reports and pictures in the field of aviation. He wrote for the American magazine General Aviation News and published there, in addition to 26 books, around 800 articles on historical aircraft types. His main job was as an engineer at Boeing for 36 years before he retired in 1988. Bowers was married to Alice Bowers. He and her have a son, David R. Bowers. Immediately before his death, he was able to write a significant number of articles that still appear in the General Aviation News to this day.

Bowers died of cancer .

Web links

• Life story, English