Growing Up Boeing

By Rebecca Wallick


Growing Up Boeing gives an insider’s perspective of the Boeing test pilots and engineers who regularly risked their lives as they tested and certified the early commercial jets, 707s through 767s, at the dawn of the jet age. Passionate about flying, Boeing test pilot S. L. “Lew” Wallick and his Flight Test colleagues lived lives full of risk and adventure while raising their families in the Puget Sound area of Washington State, a region strongly influenced by Boeing and aviation. Using personal interviews of the pilots and engineers, Lew’s daughter Rebecca weaves the accounts of many key test pilots and flight test engineers of this Golden Age of aviation into a narrative full of aviation history, behind-the-scenes drama, some well-kept secrets, and personal insights about how the Boeing test pilots worked, lived and raised their families. Growing Up Boeing offers the human side of Boeing’s flight test history.

Sit down, buckle your seat belt, put your tray table up, and prepare to take off on a nostalgic flight back in time, when the best test pilots flew by the seat of their pants, putting new commercial jets through tests that stressed and pushed the edge of performance envelopes, discovering their limits and tolerances and making them even better. Fly along on demonstration and proving flights as the test pilots help Boeing sell the airplanes to airlines around the world, meeting a few celebrities along the way. By the end of your flight, you’ll have a greater appreciation for the risks the crews took to ensure that we, the traveling public, can fly safely and comfortably to almost anywhere in the world today.

Rebecca Wallick is the daughter of legendary Boeing test pilot S. L. “Lew” Wallick. While not a pilot herself (despite her father’s best efforts), she has always had a keen interest in collecting and preserving the aviation history she witnessed growing up. Rebecca earned a degree in history at the University of Washington and law degree at Seattle University. After thirty years of practicing law and writing on the side, she is finally flipping the tables and writing full time (with a little law on the side). Rebecca resides in Kirkland, Washington with her dog Finn MacCool.

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