William Lear

William P. Lear (1902–1978)

William "Bill" Powell Lear (born June 26, 1902 in Hannibal, Missouri , † May 14, 1978 in Reno, Nevada ) was an American inventor and entrepreneur .

Life

Lear grew up in Chicago , where he dropped out of school after eighth grade and went to the United States Navy . During the First World War he was a radio operator in the military. In the late 1920s, he and Elmer Wavering invented the first workable car radio . A short time later he developed devices for aviation technology , such as radio beacon direction finders ( LearAvian ) and the first autopilot .

In 1941 he married Moya Marie Olsen, a daughter of vaudeville comedian Ole Olson . The Lear couple have four children: John , Shanda, David and Tina.

Learstar , Lockheed Model 18 converted by Lear into a business jet .

A Learjet 23 from NASA

In 1949 he founded Lear, Incorporated in Santa Monica . Among other things, he developed business jets as conversions of the Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar , which he successfully marketed under the name Learstar . He developed the ideas for a twin-engine business travel jet, which he wanted to realize in Europe for cost reasons. In 1960 he moved to Switzerland because of this . After a fruitful collaboration with Hans-Luzius Studer from FFA AG , in which the construction of the new jet under the designation SAAC-23 could essentially be completed, he moved back to the USA ( Wichita (Kansas) ) in 1962 because it had become clear to him that the sales market for the machine was mainly in the USA. In Wichita, he founded Lear Jet Industries . On October 7, 1963, the first test flight of the Learjet 23 aircraft type took place, which later went into series production.

In 1964 he invented the 8-track cassette .

The successful Canadair Regional Jet flight type is based on the LearStar 600 type. The Canadair aircraft yard bought the license and converted the model to the Canadair CL-600 Challenger Jet. Learjet was acquired by Bombardier Aerospace in 1990 .

His last major success was the LearFan flight type , a turboprop aircraft made of composite material instead of the previously common aluminum . Another special feature was the pusher concept: a propeller attached to the rear is driven by two motors.

Web links

• MIT Inventor of the Week (English)
• Biography from The National Aviation Hall of Fame (English)
• LearFan . at AviationExplorer.com (English)

bibliography

• Boesen, Victor: They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The Incredible Story of Bill Lear . Doubleday, 1971, ISBN 0-385-01841-X .
• Rashke, Richard: Stormy genius: the life of aviation's maverick, Bill Lear . Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston 1985, DDC: 629.1300924, LCC: TL540, ISBN 0-395-35372-6 .