Remembered for being the man behind the famed Learjet, Bill Lear did much more than just build the first modern business jet: he also built radios, cassette players, battery eliminators and much more!
A high school dropout and former Navy seaman who came from a broken home, Bill had a reputation for being difficult to work with and hard on his employees, constantly pushing them to push beyond the boundaries of modern technology, almost as if he had something to prove.
But beneath his rough exterior was a great sense of humor, which could make even his most serious employees cry with laughter. His sense of humor even extended to the names of his children, such as his third daughter who was called Crystal Shanda Lear!
Early Life
William Powell Lear Sr. was born on June 26 1902 in Hannibal, Missouri. The only child born to local carpenter Reubin M. Lear and his wife, Gertrude Elizabeth Powell, Bill Lear’s early life wasn’t particularly happy.
His father wasn’t particularly good at his job, and as such, was constantly out of work. Angered at how her husband couldn’t provide for the family, even after the birth of their son, William’s mother repeatedly left the family for months at a time without explanation.
Not long after William sixth birthday, Gertrude Lear decided that for her son to have the life he deserved – she needed to leave her deadbeat husband. Soon after, she and William left to go and live with her sister, Gussie Bornhouser, in Dubuque, Iowa.
Once in Iowa, Gertrude wasted no time trying to find herself another husband, having a string of boyfriends she introduced to William as “uncles”.
Though most of these relationships didn’t last long, Gertrude’s relationship with laborer Otto Kirmse did last long, long enough for Otto to become William’s step father and for the three of them to move to Chicago together.
Here, William was able to attend Kershaw Grammar School and Sunday school at Moodys Church, where he was often called “Bill” by his friends and teachers.
It was also here, where the constant bible-bashing from them and his mother caused him to stop attending church as soon as he could.
He later attended Englewood High School, but was expelled in the eighth grade after repeatedly correcting teachers’ mistakes, which they took as him showing disrespect to them.
Following his expulsion from Englewood, Bill found work as an unpaid mechanic at a local Chicago airfield, performing routine maintenance to make sure the American airmail aircraft were kept in flying condition.
In the summer of 1919, Bill was sent to stay the summer with his biological father in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he used what he’d learned maintaining aircraft to completely rebuild his father’s Ford Model T.
Hating his mother for constantly abusing him (such as her telling him that he wouldn’t amount to anything like his father and that all women were evil), Bill refused to return to Chicago at the end of the summer and instead enlisted the Navy in September 1920.
Enlisting as a radio operator, the Navy sent him to Great Lakes Naval Training Station just north of Chicago to learn radio. Graduating basic training with the rank of apprentice seaman, Bill remained at Great Lakes as an instructor.
Initially excited by his new job, Bill quickly grew bored of teaching, finding it inane and monotonous. As such, when the Navy announced it was cutting back its staff due to budget cuts in early 1921, Bill was one of the first to request an early discharge.
Despite being in uniform less than six months, Bill Lear received an honorable discharge on March 1 1921 and moved back in with his mother and step father, before moving with them to Illinois after the death of his grandfather.
Radio Engineer
A Start in Aviation
In 1931, Bill Lear acquired a Fleet biplane from a woman in Dearborn, Michigan for a total of $2,500. Despite only having two and a half hours of actual lessons, Lear flew the aircraft from Dearborn to New York on his first solo flight.
Though he eventually made it there in one piece, Bill learned firsthand the dangers of aerial navigation after getting lost several times. After realizing it wasn’t just his lack of experience, Bill vowed to do something about it.
Founding Lear Developments, Bill set about developing a radio detection finder that could make aerial navigation so much easier. Known as the Lear-O-Scope, it proved a resounding success and netted Lear millions in today’s money.
Bill even began developing an advanced autopilot, which earned him a place on Harry Bruno’s 1944 list of ” 87 all-time greats in American aviation … [who] gambled their necks, their brains and their money – that aviation might grow.”
During WWII, Bill incorporated design elements from the Lear-O-Scope to develop compact field radios he called the “LearAvian”. Using the $100 million the company earned from producing autopilots and radios, Bill began designing a compact autopilot for fighter jets.
In 1949, Lear Developments’ compact autopilot was installed on the Northrop F-5 fighter jet and both proved instant successes. With this, Bill opened a factory in Santa Monica, California so he could began mass-producing the F-5’s autopilot.
That year, Bill also changed the name of Lear Developments to Lear Incorporated.
For his efforts with the F-5’s autopilot, Bill Lear was awarded the Collier Trophy in 1949, and was presented with it personally by then-President Harry Truman in the White House!
By 1956, Lear Developments had built over 100,000 autopilots for the F-5, Sud Aviation Caravelle and other aircraft. In September 1963, a Caravelle made history by performing a series of blind landings using nothing but the autopilot.
SAAC
The largest name in the autopilot game, Bill was the first port of call for seemingly every aircraft manufacturer who wanted an autopilot installed on their latest aircraft.
Due to this, Bill had become familiar with Switzerland’s FFA P-16 fighter jet – a project that had been abandoned in 1958 after two of the three prototypes crashed during flight testing.
Able to get his hands on the P-16’s blueprints, Bill moved to Switzerland and incorporated the Swiss American Aviation Company (SAAC) with the intention of redeveloping the P-16 for corporate use.
You see, the 1950’s had seen an explosion in air travel. But it was expensive, and often entailed catching multiple flights to get to the place you wanted to go. Something that was frustrating time consuming.
Having felt that frustration himself, Bill knew that if he could build a small, six to eight seat airliner-like aircraft that could fly directly from point-to-point, it would sell. No matter what other people told him.
Studying the P-16’s design religiously, Bill Lear began work on what he called the SAAC 23 and even employed the exiled former King of Romania as a test pilot.
Upon his return to the US with a workable design, Bill showed it to his board and attempted to convince them to enter the aircraft manufacturing industry but they refused.
In protest, Bill sold his stake in Lear Incorporated to the Siegler Corporation in 1962 and vowed to start again.
Learjet
Lear Motors & Lear Stereo
Death
As Lear got older, his health began to deteriorate. Frustrated that his failing body was taking him away from his work, Lear got more and more depressed and threatened suicide on multiple occasions, which landed him in protective hold – something that only made his depression worse.
To top things off, a 1978 visit to the hospital saw doctors diagnose him with leukemia. Blood cancer.
Despite his seemingly regular visits to the hospital, doctors hadn’t caught it until it was too late, and Bill was given mere months to live. Safe to say, news of his impending death did little to ease his suicidal tendencies.
After a short battle with leukemia, where doctors did all they could to save him, Bill Lear finally passed away on May 14 1978, surrounded by his family in a hospital in Reno, Nevada, at the age of 75.
Survived by his wife, three ex-wives and seven children, his death was announced by the company he founded and in obituaries in every major national newspaper.
As per his wishes, Bill’s remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean – one last spite to his mother who’d always wanted her son to be buried near her.
Not long after his death in 1978, Bill Lear was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame – the same year as Clyde Cessna, Tony LeVier and Gabby Gabreski were – for his services to business aviation.
Three years later, in 1981, Bill was enshrined in the International Aviation Hall of Fame for the same reasons. In 1993, Bill was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his dozens of inventions.
10 years later, in 2003, the city of Hannibal, Missouri (Bill’s hometown) announced it was remaining the city’s Hannibal Municipal Airport to Hannibal Regional Airport, William P. Lear Field in Bill’s honor.
Legacy
Aviation
Learjet
Obviously, without Bill Lear, Learjet as a company would’ve never existed. However, Bill Lear did more than just found the company: he gave it heart, and the corporate culture it still had long after Lear sold his stake in the company.
As its founder, Bill had one driving philosophy:
“This plane is going to be just like the Volkswagen. Ten years from now it will look just the same. But it will fly faster, land slower, use less fuel and be more reliable.”
Everything else, he reasoned, would come naturally. Especially after the success of the original Learjet 23!
And though Learjet has expanded greatly as a company since, they have stayed true to this philosophy. Just look at their most recent jets – the Learjet 70 and 75 – and their original Learjet 23. The resemblance is uncanny!
They also fly faster, land slower (and thus need a shorter runway to land on), are more fuel-efficient and are more reliable in almost every way – mostly brought about due to Learjet’s unwavering loyalty to Bill Lear’s original driving philosophy.