Inventor of the Lear Jet Remembering Bill Lear
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- Опубліковано 22 сер 2024
- William Powell "Bill" Lear (June 26, 1902 - May 14, 1978) was an American inventor and businessman. He is best known for founding the Lear Jet Corporation, a manufacturer of business jets. He also invented the battery eliminator for the B battery, and developed the 8-track cartridge, an audio tape system.[1] Throughout his career of 46 years, Lear received over 120 patents.
Lear developed the Lear Jet Stereo 8 music cartridge in 1964, better-known as the "8-track". This was an eight track variation of the four track Muntz Stereo-Pak tape cartridge, marketed by Earl "Madman" Muntz in California in 1962, itself a version of a 3-track system, Fidelipac. The 8-track was a commercial success that provided good audio quality and was easily adapted to vehicle and home use.[4] It was a solution to the need for a convenient music source for his new business jets. The consumer version of players for these tapes first appeared in September 1965 in 1966 model Ford automobiles with RCA and Lear offering the first pre-recorded Stereo 8 Music Cartridges.
In 1968, Lear also started work on a closed circuit steam turbine to power cars and buses, and built a transit bus and converted a Chevrolet Monte Carlo sedan to use this turbine system. It used a proprietary working fluid dubbed Learium, possibly a chlorofluorocarbon similar to DuPont Freon.[5]
In 1969, Lear and his friend Art Linkletter offered their support for Craig Breedlove's supersonic car project.
Lear founded Lear Developments, a company specializing in aerospace instruments and electronics.[6] Lear developed radio direction finders, autopilots, and the first fully automatic aircraft landing system. He was awarded the Collier Trophy for this contribution in 1949.
He's most remembered for his line of business jets starting with the Learjet 23, the first mass-produced business jet.
PJ 159
My uncle was a corporate pilot in the 60's and 70's. His company took delivery of one of the first Lear 23's in 1964. I had the oportunity to fly with him in the late 70's. It was the thrill of a lifetime. I'll never forget feeling like I was in a rocket as it took off.
So here we are in 2022, and the Lear Jet is now a wonderful memory, an incredible part of aviation history, but it is now a magnificent anachronism and no longer in production. 😢
My dad started flying Lear 23/24 in 1965 with Executive Jet Aviation. They were the precursor to
NetJets. He flew them for 3 years. My first ride was around 1966 as I recall. An extremely beautiful aircraft. My dad loved them.
Have watched this documentary at least 100 times, it never ever gets old to me! Probably why I am a commercial pilot to this day!
Bill Lear was my grandfathers second cousin. The family had letters that I had interest in as a young girl. After an Aunt died over 35 years ago I never knew what happened to them. I would have treasured them…
Thank you Bill Lear and all his group of great engineers for their tenacity to make it happen.
I had one of Bill Lear's 8 track tape decks under the dash of my 1956 Old's 88. It had ten times the sound qualities of AM radio back then. Everyone wanted to drive to events with me because of the sound system . Thank you Bill, as I discovered my first true girlfriend listening to that old Lear 8 track. And I still have her today ( my wife) including the memories of that tape deck.
Back in the early seventies one of Clay Lacy's Lears came to our local airport. I was at the airport just as they closed the doors, started the engines, turned to taxi to the runway. As they turned the jet blast blew over one of the big trash cans on the viewer side of the chain link fence. It's funny how such things stick in a person's memory. It was only about 50 years ago.
. . . and so I just remembered another bit of trivia. I used to listen to Monterey area air traffic on my multiband radio. One night a Cessna Citation took off from Monterey. A minute later a Learjet took off. Controller: "Citation, what's your altitude?" and the Citation pilot responded with something like, "Citation is at 4,000." Then the controller called, "Lear, the Citation ahead of you is at 4,000 . . . " The Lear pilot replied, "We're at 7,000. Traffic not a factor." They did climb pretty fast.
They said he couldn't build it, he did. They said it wouldn't fly, it did. They said no one would buy it, they did.
I remember seeing and touching the Lear in 1965.
I was a very young teenager. This was Orlando
Fla. I would ride my bicycle all over the field never being chased away.
There was a brand new 23
Sitting in the hanger. Just flew in from New York. The plane was very cold. I asked one of the pilots if I could take a look inside.
Sure, just don't touch anything. The lear was owned by Tupperware. I'm 70 and still say the lear was a bad ass jet. That will be around for years to come.
What a great story!!!!
He was just great!!!
Hello from México.
Trivia factoid---> Lear was also into rubber and asphalt. He designed and built a handful of dragsters and tested them on runways and taxiways at Stead Field, Nevada (where the Reno Air Races are now held). There is also a separate length of asphalt crumbing away out yonder on the Stead Field property that he eventually installed himself and still remains somewhat intact from his race car testing exploits.
This ought to be made into a film...
Definitely 👍100%. You took the words right ✅👌👏 out of my mouth.
The Swiss designed the best airplane wing for years to come...and it took Lear to see its potential. Seen in this light, a bit of Switzerland still flies with every original Learjet today.
Lear 21
Fantastic still as of Today
Love Learjets. I was first made aware of them in 2010 when I started playing Flight Simulator X (one of the stock aircraft was the Learjet 45). It quickly became my favourite plane to fly in FSX because of it's performance and flexibility. I did a many round-the-world trips with it in FSX and although it may not be realistic, it had no issues taking off MTOW from the many ~3,000ft coral runways in the pacific that I stopped at and certainly had no issues stopping on them with reverse thrust only. For the first several years my cruise altitude was always FL350 but one day I decided to try FL510 and was amazed by the extra range that resulted (about 40% greater range at FL510 vs FL350). I'm not sure if that range increase is realistic but after that I always cruised at FL510 (provided that the flight was long enough). It's a shame that Microsoft's new flight simulator doesn't have a Learjet as a stock aircraft).
Superb Vision and true belief
just announced stopping production of all lears this week
@@swoopsaveherproductions6460 ?
Voei no lear 24//35...
Que máquinas maravilhosas☆☆☆☆
Ma motiva este proyecto de de Bill
Too bad it’s been announced that Bombardier will cease Lear production at the end of the FY.
Everything the Bomber touches, dies.
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