EAST WENATCHEE — The fifth annual Wings &Wheels Festival included dreams come true for two prominent men.
Bill Boeing Jr., son of the founder of The Boeing Co., flew into Pangborn Memorial Airport from Seattle on a Lear jet Saturday for his first look at a replica of a 79-year-old Boeing mail-and-passenger plane that he hired East Wenatchee’s Century Aviation to build. He recalled his first flight in such a plane.
And East Wenatchee Mayor Steve Lacy, father of the festival commemorating the first trans-Pacific flight 76 years ago, got his first ride in the Miss Veedol, a four-year-old, locally built replica of the plane of that flight. American pilots Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon Jr. flew the Miss Veedol from Misawa, Japan, to Fancher Field north of East Wenatchee, landing Oct. 5, 1931.
“It’s been my dream for a while,” Lacy said. “It’s history. A guy can close his eyes and pretend he’s reliving history.”
The ride inside the replica two-seat 1931 Bellanca wasn’t as noisy as he had expected, Lacy said. Climbing in and out through the window of the doorless plane was a bit of a challenge. “It’s a little harder to get in and out of than my Lexus,” Lacy quipped.
The mayor said he gained a lot of respect for Pangborn’s and Herndon’s ability to sit in such a confined space for their 41-hour flight. He said a half-hour was just right for him.
The Miss Veedol led a seven-plane parade in two circles above the valley, including Eastmont Community Park, where hundreds of people enjoyed looking at dozens of vintage cars — the wheels portion of the festival.
Lacy wore a leather Boeing flight jacket he said he had purchased recently at Seattle- Tacoma International Airport just for his Miss Veedol ride.
Before the ride, Lacy welcomed Bill Boeing Jr. and said Boeing’s visit was the real news.
A tall man, walking with two canes, Boeing, 85, was all smiles as Mark Smith, co-owner of Century Aviation, led him toward his plane, a nonflying replica of a 1928 Boeing Model 40-B.
The Model 40-B was the plane that put The Boeing Co. on the map, Smith said. It was the first mail plane with a front indoor cabin for two passengers and was the beginning of practical passenger travel that led to the creation of United Airlines, Smith said.
The air-cooled, 525-horsepower Pratt &Whitney engine was dependable, navigation systems were improved and steel tubing instead of wood for the fuselage made a strong, durable craft that could carry more weight, he said.
Boeing said his first flight, taken when he was 5 years old, was in a 1928 Boeing Model 40-B. He said Eddie Hubbard, a famous Boeing pilot of that era, took him up and flew over the Boeing house at the north end of Seattle.
“He only went around the house once and I wanted him to go around again, but he didn’t want to because he was sitting outside,” Boeing said in reference to the pilot’s open-air rear cockpit.
Boeing admired the work of Smith and Karen Barrow, co-owners of Century Aviation. The 34-foot-long plane is painted gray and has logos of the Boeing Air Transportation Inc., B Line San Francisco-Chicago service and American Railway Express.
“Railroads, rather than compete, worked together with air service,” Smith explained.
Smith and Barrow finished building the plane just in time to display it at Wings &Wheels. The job took two years, and Smith said the hardest part was a one-year search to find an original engine.
Boeing said he hired Century Aviation to build the plane because he couldn’t buy the only two in existence, one at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., and the other at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Boeing would not disclose how much he spent to have the plane built but said he is giving it to The Museum of Flight in Seattle on Oct. 20.
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