TACOMA, Wash. – William T. “Wind Tunnel” Hamilton, a Boeing Co. engineer who went from building a dog-carrying box kite to pioneering wing designs and work on a space telescope, is dead at age 84.
Hamilton, who directed key tests on U.S. warplanes during World War II, died Feb. 16 after a seven-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Born in Marion Center, Pa., Hamilton began a lifelong fascination with box kites while growing up in Mount Vernon, Wash. He and a friend launched a kite carrying a neighbor’s small dog, then landed it safely, and repeated the feat with a kite carrying a lantern.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Washington in 1941, he found work at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics wind tunnel at Moffett Field, Calif., south of San Francisco.
Hamilton tested almost every new military plane that was designed during World War II and worked out the aerodynamic kinks in the P-51, which became the nation’s premier fighter.
After the war he returned to Washington, earned a master’s degree and began a 32-year career at Boeing.
His top achievements were in wing design, especially for the company’s first commercial jet passenger plane, the 707. His wing design for a bigger 707 enabled Boeing to compete against the McDonnell Douglas DC-8.
Hamilton also worked on the 727, 737, 747, 757 and 767 jetliners, B-52 bomber, Minuteman missile and Boeing’s failed attempt to build a supersonic transport.
As vice president and general manager of the Boeing Aerospace Group’s research and engineering division, he managed the space shuttle, supersonic transport and space telescope programs in the 1970s.
One of his last projects was the Hubble Space Telescope.
Survivors include his wife, Ida Mae of Tacoma; a son, Richard of Copalis Beach; daughters Janet of Portland, Ore., and Nancy of Tacoma, and a grandson.
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