Boeing Model 40 to appear in Arlington

Published 4:27 pm Thursday, July 9, 2009

Boeing’s latest commercial aircraft, its 787, won’t be taking to the skies around the Puget Sound region this week.

But the company’s first commercial aircraft, a Boeing 40, will make an appearance at the Arlington Fly-In on Friday.

This Boeing 40C, restored by Spokane-area aviation aficionado Addison Pemberton, made its first flight in 80 years in February 2008.

Built in Seattle in 1928, this Boeing 40 was operated for about six months by Pacific Air Transport on a mail route. The plane crashed in southern Oregon in October 1928, killing the Pacific Air Transport passenger, a diamond broker. The pilot survived. The Boeing 40C was left where it crashed until a member of the Oregon Historical Society found it again in 1993.

Pemberton later acquired the wreckage along with Boeing 40C design specs and began a nine-year effort to restore the plane.

The Spokesman Review published this piece on Pemberton and the Boeing 40 when the restored plane made its first public flight last year.

And this story looks at the history of the Boeing Model 40.

Visit the Arlington Fly-In Web site for more information.