Wong Tsu, Boeing’s first aeronautical engineer, graduated from MIT in 1916. He is pictured here the following year.
Copyright © Boeing
In 1904, anti-Asian sentiment in the United States came to a head when Congress passed an indefinite extension of the Chinese exclusion law, almost completely shutting the doors on Chinese immigration. Yet just over a decade later, Beijing-born Wong Tsu came to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thanks to a loophole in the law that made an exception for students. Shortly after graduating from MIT’s New Aviation Program in June 1916, Wong was hired as Boeing’s first aeronautical engineer, solidifying his place in aviation history.
The turn of the 20th century was an era of remarkable growth for flight, and Wong was instrumental in the design of Boeing’s first successful aircraft, the Boeing Model C. He became the the company’s first military aircraft, its first used to carry mail and the catalyst for the development of the Model 40A, the first Boeing aircraft to carry passengers.
“The Model C was not only Boeing’s first production order, it was the first Boeing aircraft to be mass-produced and sold,” says Tom Crouch, curator emeritus at Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and author of several books, including Wings: a history of aviation, from kites to the space age. “Wong Tsu put the business on the map,” he said.
READ MORE: 8 groundbreaking contributions of Asian Americans throughout history
From bicycle mechanics to stuntmen
While Wong was still a child in China, Wilbur and Orville Wright, two bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, made history in 1903 with the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight over the Kitty Hawk Dunes. . The Wright Brothers envisioned a future where planes carried mail and passengers, but aviation in the pre-World War I period was greeted with skepticism at first.
Early planes were extremely fragile with few instruments, relegating flight to the realm of sensational spectacle as stunt pilots made their way to curious onlookers at carnivals and county fairs. High winds were particularly troublesome, and anxious pilots preferred to fly only in the early morning or late afternoon, when the air was calmest.
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Wong comes to MIT
At the age of 12, Wong was selected for the Manchu government’s Yang-Tai Naval Academy, and at age 16, he became one of the first Chinese sea cadets sent to England to study engineering. naval. The Chinese government then sent him to study the nascent science of aviation at MIT.
At MIT, Wong used the university’s new four-square-foot wind tunnel – one of the country’s first of its kind – to conduct controlled experiments and gain rare insight into aerodynamic stability. With a thesis on Air resistance of cylinder combinations, Wong became in 1916 one of the few graduate aeronautical engineers in the country.
READ MORE: 6 Little-Known Aviation Pioneers
Boeing’s first plane: the N & B
During final assembly phase in May 1916, close-up of student cockpit on Boeing and Westervelt Sport Trainer Model 1.
Aviation Museum / Corbis / Getty Images
On July 4, 1914, William Edward Boeing, owner of a successful forestry company in Seattle, convinced the first aviator Terah Maroney to take him on his Curtiss seaplane. Boeing’s maiden flight reinforced what it already believed: the future was in aviation.
Boeing also felt it could build a better plane – it just needed the right aeronautical engineer. He turned to a friend, Lieutenant (Navy) George Conrad Westervelt, who had spent time at MIT and who was stationed at the nearby Bremerton Shipyards. Together they created Pacific Aero Products Co. and named their first aircraft the B&W, after their respective initials. Unfortunately, the B&W showed a tendency to bank in flight when tested for the Navy in 1916. Although the problem was corrected, the damage had been done and not a single B&W aircraft has ever been sold in the United States.
After Westervelt was assigned by Navy Back East, he consulted Jerome C. Hunsaker, the founder of the aviation program at MIT, about a replacement engineer. Hunsaker recommended Wong. Boeing, after learning of Wong’s vast wind tunnel expertise, telegramed, “Engage Chinaman.”
Anti-Chinese sentiment in the Pacific Northwest
During Wong’s time at MIT, students from China made up the largest percentage of foreigners. They were involved not only in research, but in the essential fabric of student life, participating in everything from athletics to theater. But on the West Coast, especially in the Pacific Northwest, people of Asian descent have had a very different experience. In 1885, a giant mob in Tacoma, Washington, forcibly evicted hundreds of Chinese residents, leading them to a nearby train station. In 1886, nearly 400 more in Seattle were dragged out of their homes and taken to a steamboat bound for San Francisco.
It was a perilous time to be Chinese in Seattle. To attract Wong, Boeing personally gave assurances for his safety, according to Key Donn, former chairman of the Boeing Asian American Professional Association. This promise has paid off.
Boeing Model C
The Dope Room at the Boeing Aircraft Factory, pictured here in 1917, is where airplane wings like this Model C wing structure were designed and built.
Aviation Museum / Corbis / Getty Images
Wong was instrumental in the development of the Model C trainer seaplane, which incorporated several groundbreaking innovations: the wings were tilted slightly upward, with the upper wing seated forward of the lower wing rather than the lower wing. ‘be stacked for greater stability. Importantly, Wong was also able to test a model in a newly built wind tunnel at the University of Washington and apply his honed data analysis skills at MIT.
Boeing was so proud of the seaplane that they called it the first “all-Boeing” design. The Model C first flew on November 5, 1916 and an improved Model C, with a larger rudder, made its first flight on April 9, 1917. Two weeks later, Boeing changed the name to Pacific Aero Products Co . by Boeing Airplane Co.
After test flights at Naval Air Force Base in Pensacola, Florida in the summer of 1917, Navy officials were also impressed. Despite 35 mph winds, the Model C turned out better than anything they had seen. They ordered 50 C models for a price of $ 575,000. Since the total value of all aircraft orders in the United States in 1914 was just under $ 800,000, this was a substantial order in all respects and launched Boeing as a successful aircraft manufacturer.
READ MORE: First nonstop flight across the Atlantic lasted a heartbreaking 16 hours
From naval contracts to air mail and passengers
On March 3, 1919, William Boeing (right) and pilot Eddie Hubbard made the first American international air flight aboard this Boeing Model C, a modified World War I trainer that they flew from Vancouver, Canada , in Seattle.
Copyright © Boeing
After World War I, the Model C made history again. On March 3, 1919, Boeing and its senior test pilot, Eddie Hubbard, flew the C-700, the last Model C ever built, with a bag of 60 letters from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Seattle, in the first international airmail from North America. flight.
This memorable aerial flight opened the doors to another route: the longest in the country, from San Francisco to Chicago, on which Hubbard pressured Boeing to successfully submit in 1927. The aircraft used for the road, the Model 40A, not only had cargo space for mail, but also a small cabin with room for two passengers. At the end of the first year, writes Alain Pelletier, in Boeing: the full story, Model 40A aircraft carried 379 tonnes of mail and 1,863 passengers, paving the way for Boeing’s remarkable success in commercial aviation.
READ MORE: How America’s Aviation Industry Started Carrying Mail
Wong returns to China
In Seattle, Wong’s contributions are commemorated at the Museum of Flight with a permanent exhibit recognizing his work as Boeing’s first engineer. Despite the extraordinary ripple effects of Wong’s contributions to Boeing, he only spent 10 months with the company, leaving for China shortly before the Model C test flights for the Navy. Wong would go on to create a legacy ranging from establishing his home country’s first aircraft factory in Fuzhou in 1917 to heading the Aeronautical Research Academy in 1945, earning his place as one of the founding fathers of Chinese aviation.
