Thank you John and I will cede to you the next question.
When my father, whom I respect more than anyone else I've ever known except my mother, graduated from the University of Michigan in 1952 with a degree in aeronautical engineering, went looking for a job turned down offers from North American, Convair and Republic to go to work for United Airlines. This was in no small part an expression of his peaceful values, which I share and follow as a part of my modeling preferences.
The two people with whom he interviewed; Ralph Patterson and "Dusty" Rhodes, offered him a position at the then new UAL Maintenance Base in San Francisco as an engineer in flight performance.
UAL in 1952 was operating the Stratocruiser from SF to Hawaii; remember it had no international routes.
The Strat was an all first class flight, it left SF at mid morning and landed in Honolulu at noon.
Coach was a DC-7 that left 90 minutes later and landed just behind the Boeing.
There's a whole discussion about why a number of Strats were lost on that route, in particular by Pan Am, which according to my dad was caused by cowl flap usage: open slow, closed faster. It was called the "Big Problem". The a/c flew R4360's which needed open flaps at a respectable speed. There was also a reverse pitch issue, which he differs judgement on because he has little knowledge about, although he's as much an expert on radial powerplant technology as anyone I've ever met.
His senior thesis at U of M was a turbo/supercharged Allison inline 12 with positive crankcase pressure, which ran away on the test stand. Ergo he never got to interview with Kindelberger.
He later was a member of the Caravelle evaluation team and the leader of the Concorde evaluation group, during which I spent a number of summers in my youth in England, at Filton; and Toulouse.
He recruited quite a number of bright young engineers over the decades, from all over the world.
His last professional role was as the leader of the specifications committee of users for 777.
It was a great company. At his retirement in 2000, after 48 years with UAL, Boeing gave him a personalized leather bomber jacket.
In my youth we flew on Viscounts, DC-2's, DC-3's, DC-4's, DC-6's, DC-7's, DC-8's, DC-10's, B-727's, B-737's, B-747's, B-757's, B-767's, B-777's, Caravelles, Convair 440's, 720's, all the mutt and jeff code shares. Never flew on a Strat. Other carriers, everything you can imagine including the BAC corporate DH Dove but never a flying boat.
In 1959 we flew to Hawaii to visit my moms college roomate, who was married to a USN sub commander at Pearl Harbor. After a week there, we flew to the Big Island on a DC-2 with sideways benches, it was me , mom and dad and a chain gang returning from road work in Honolulu. Ah, pass travel. Being the person that he is, dad made friends with the locals and we went out later to the penitentiary, where he bought them out of five foot long koa salad fork/spoon sets and tiki statues. He didn't have a problem getting the shipped home...
Here's to my Dad; UAL 1952-2000
