All language subtitles for B T W S03E04 1080p WEB h264-BAE_track3_[eng]

- [Announcer] This
program was made possible

by Wings Over the Rockies,

educating and
inspiring all people

about aviation and
space endeavors of

the past, present,
and the future.

- Hi, I'm Shahn Sederberg and
this is "Behind the Wings".

In this episode, we're
exploring the Learjet legacy.

- [Pilot] Okay, we've
finished the turn,

now climbing straightaway.

- For nearly 60 years,

the Learjet came to define
a new class of luxury aircraft,

the business jet.

- [Narrator] No other business
jet can fly that high.

- Now, the final Learjet
is being assembled at

the Wichita-based
production facility in

the aviation capital
of the world.

- [Narrator] Learjet, on a
world record setting flight.

- From its record-setting
performance achievements

to its out sized role
in popular culture,

the Learjet's place in
history is here to stay,

long after the production
lines have shut down.

It's time to go
"Behind The Wings".

(soft upbeat music)

- Bill Lear was an entrepreneur
based in California.

He wanted to build a
small jet airplane.

His board of directors
at California said,

"No, we're not gonna do that."

So he resigned, he
goes to Switzerland.

His son, who was living in
Switzerland at the time,

said that there was a small
fighter bomber called the P-16,

which is being built
here in Switzerland,

which the Swiss are
not going to buy.

And Bill Jr. said,

"I think this could be the

platform for a
small jet airplane."

(gentle music)

- One day I got a letter
from Switzerland and said,

Don, if you want a job, I
have one over here for you.

You can be the head of
the technical group.

Cessna at that time, I
was very disappointed

because we were building the
first business jet over there.

And Dwane Wallace came
in one morning and said,

"Nobody can afford a business
jet except the military,

and the military aren't
interested in what we're doing."

So they came in and
canceled the whole project.

After that, I said,

"Anybody who's gonna
build a business jet,

that's where I'm going."

I had a wife and four
children at the time,

and they stayed here, and
I went to Switzerland.

And when I got over there, I
didn't like what was going on.

I tried to talk to these people,

and they didn't like the
Americans coming in there.

And so you'd walk in,

and they'd lay down on
their desks and cover what

they were doing so
you couldn't see.

I tried to supervise them, and
those guys would sit there.

They were reading magazines.

One day, one of the guys
that could speak English,

I said, "Why do you
guys just not work?"

And he says,

"Well, we make drawings
in ink, you know,

and we have to take
time, and we make a line,

and then we have to sit for
a while, let that line dry."

Holy cow, we're never gonna
build this thing here.

So, Bill Lear
finally said, "Okay."

And so he went looking,
and I told him,

I said, "If you come to Wichita,
we know a lot of engineers,

and it'll be easy to get them."

Finally, he came to Wichita.

- After the FFA P-16
Swiss fighter jet

drew Bill Lear to Switzerland,

he soon realized that
Wichita, Kansas was

the place that
Learjet needed to be.

The workforce of engineers
was there and ready to go.

With a big vision
and a lot to prove,

Learjet made the
move to Wichita.

(dramatic music)

- Wichita was founded in 1871,

and for about the
first 40 years,

was known primarily
for agriculture,

a little bit of meat processing,
and small businesses.

In the early 20th century,

oil was discovered in this
part of the state of Kansas.

And several people made a
lot of money pretty quickly

before the end of World War I.

So the flyers got together with

the oil people
who had the money,

who provided the resources
to allow that to happen.

And at one point in the 1920s,

there were more than
a dozen different

aircraft manufacturing
facilities in Wichita, Kansas.

Another reason why
Wichita is the center

is we are very flat out here.

So if your airplane had trouble,

it was not a big deal
to land the airplane,

as opposed to trying to
find a mountain range

to go through and then land.

We have a large
number of flying days,

so that's important to have
good weather when you're flying,

particularly in an
experimental airplane.

And finally, we're basically
in the middle of the U.S.,

so that delivering an airplane

to either coast
was not a big deal.

So, a lot of factors kind
of coalesced to provide

the genesis of Learjet,
which, in 1928,

got the name of the air
capital of the world

because of the great
number of small airplanes

that were being built here.

- The very first business jet,

when everyone told him it
can't be done and no one

will buy them and
the perseverance,

he stayed in it
and kept it going.

And then to build it to
such an iconic brand is,

I mean, overwhelming how
they did this, you know,

in the times that they
actually did it in,

the technology and the
workforce and the skills.

And they developed that
in Wichita, Kansas.

- Bill Lear was a visionary
and a jack of all trades.

He was an inventor, an
engineer and an entrepreneur.

According to those
who knew him closely,

working for him was an
exercise in controlled chaos.

Learjet moved quickly
on its mission to create

the world's first business jet.

- Learjet showed
up in the sixties,

but in 1958 the Boeing
707 had just come out,

so people were actually
being ferried around

the country on jet airliners.

And Bill Lear came to Wichita,

and he said to the combined
Cessna and Beechcraft people,

"If you guys don't
build a private airplane

that's a jet airplane to
compete with that 707, I will."

- Bill Lear was
clearly a visionary,

the greatest visionary
I've ever been around

and spent much time with.

He was everything that
anybody has ever heard about.

He was irascible, he was,
he could be a son of a gun,

he could be warm,
he could be kind,

he could be funny,
he could be generous.

So he was all of those
things all wrapped up.

Somebody's always asking me,

"What was it like
working for Bill Lear?"

And I said, "It was
a number of years of

the best years of my life

that I wouldn't particularly
wanna go through again,"

because he would fire somebody

on Tuesday and hire
him back on Wednesday.

So it was a
lot of fun to be around.

But he was just a
guy who saw things

before anybody else saw things.

And he was ahead of his time.

- [Dave Franson] Bill
Lear was a genius.

He dropped out of school
in the eighth grade.

He was 13 years old.

He's pretty much on his own.

He was an orphan very early.

And he came up with
an awful lot of stuff.

He was a self-trained engineer.

He had a lot of great ideas.

- Bill Lear was an
incredible visionary.

He had a fire in his spirit.

And, you know,
people would tell him

that these inventions were
never gonna happen and he

couldn't do it, but
Bill never gave up,

and he pushed those limits.

One of his favorite quotes is,

"They said it couldn't
be done, and it was."

- Engineering was his long suit,

that's where he spent
most of his time.

Engineers talk about coming
back to work in the morning,

and they might have
this blueprint of
they were working on,

and he'd be drawing all over it,

and you'd see a WPL
signature on it,

where he told you what he wanted

to change or asking
you questions.

And the engineer
said, "You know,

if you thought about it,
he was usually right."

He could just see
their drawing and have

an idea and improve it.

So this was a guy with an
eighth-grade education,

so pretty amazing
story in itself.

- Well, Bill Lear was
a very interesting guy,

was a real genius and a really
interesting person to know.

Had so many things
on his mind all

the time and things
he was interested in,

not one thing, but
not even a dozen more.

- To ride with Bill Lear in an
airplane was an experience.

Number one, he was type
rated in the airplane

at the age of 62.

And if he was in the airplane,

he was in the left
seat, he flew.

And if you were in the back,

it was not unusual
for him to back out

of his seat in the
left with a screwdriver

in one hand and maybe
a pair of pliers,

dragging cable down
the center aisle where

the other people were
tinkering with something.

Never amounted to a problem,

but it was a little
bit disconcerting

if it was your first
ride in the Learjet.

- Bill Lear came in at 5:00
o'clock one day and said,

"We're gonna fly the
airplane tonight."

Holy cow.

The airplane was ready to fly

because we had taken
it out and taxied it.

But we didn't have a lot
of the systems in it yet.

I remember one of the guys
that was gonna fly says,

"We need parachutes,"
and we didn't have any,

and Bill Lear said,

"Well, what'd you
need a parachute for?

You bring that
airplane back here.

I don't want you
jumping out of it."

- And they said, "It's ready."

Hank and I climbed in, taxied
out the runway one four,

fueled it up, and I took it off.

Got it up to 2000 feet and
started wiggling it around

a little bit.

We come back around to land.

Cars were lined up all along
P42 with their lights on.

- All the skeptics were out.
- Yeah, the word got around.

I guess it said on the radio
that the Learjet is flying.

One of the best
sights I've ever seen.

- Got my video camera
and took a shot

of it taking off and landing.

And those videos are
still around today.

You know, they made
the first flight,

everything worked fine, the
gear came up and went down.

It was a great day.

Landed without incident.

And I remember Bill
was so excited.

The next day he says,

"We've gotta get this
airplane painted,

and we're gonna have a
big press conference."

So some of those you see,
those flights you see now,

I took off that little
eight-millimeter camera.

Flew right over the
top building here.

- Learjets set a
standard right away.

I mean, literally, if you
were to look at the movie of

the first flight of the Learjet
flying over the factory,

they made a low pass,
and it was so fast,

it was almost hard to
follow the airplane.

And it maintained a tremendous
record for capability,

set speed records,
set altitude records.

- As the first
Learjets took flight,

the brand name and its
role in popular culture

were quick to follow.

From high profile celebrities

to Hollywood movie appearances,

Learjet had an unconventional
yet highly effective strategy

to make the Learjet
name synonymous with

the term business jet.

Surprisingly, it worked.

- Very definitely, Bill
Lear's vision was to have

the name Learjet
become synonymous with

the term business jet.

That was the charge to his
public relations people,

of which I was one.

- The Lear company really
worked hard to roll it out,

and it became a household name.

When an airplane
was flying over,

people would say, "Oh,
there goes the Learjet."

- It really caught on.

People would see any
private jet flying,

they'd say, "Oh, look,
there goes a Learjet."

- They think of a Learjet.

- Everybody knew the Learjet

even if they
weren't in aviation.

Being out in the Hollywood area,

Bill said to me one
day, look, he said,

"I wanna take this
company public one day."

He said, "I want all the
publicity we can get."

He says, "Take a
phone book and anybody

in Hollywood you wanna
fly, just fly them.

- I had the privilege of flying

a Lear 24 with Arnold Palmer.

Arnold Palmer is a tremendous
athlete, natural athlete,

tremendous pilot,
tremendous person,

and the Learjet fit
his personality,

go someplace fast
and enjoy life.

- Elvis Presley flew in one on
his honeymoon.

The Byrds, a musical group had
written a song about the Learjet

Carly Simon talked
about the Learjet.

Frank Sinatra had one.

- With Frank and his
friends who came,

Dean Martin, Sammy Davis,
Peter Lawford, things.

So, I flew them around
a lot early when

the Lear was a new airplane.

They loved it, and they
helped promote the airplane.

- Learjet wasn't just
making waves in pop culture.

It also set a host of
performance records

from Time to Climb to speed
and high altitude records.

Learjet used its fighter
jet roots to push

the limits of performance.

Many of these records
still hold today.

- Early On, the Learjet
got the nickname of

the businessman's jet just
because of its high performance,

flying from sea
level to 40,000 feet

in seven or eight minutes,

which is Air Force
fighter performance,

its speed of 560 miles an hour.

It's an airplane that looks like

it's flying 500 miles an
hour, standing on the ramp.

Just the sleek design
of the airplane.

- We were trying to stay
ahead of the competition,

trying to get the fastest,
the highest, lowest,

operating cost Time
to Climb records,

distance records, speed records,

which airplanes within an
envelope was capable of doing.

- It was the best
airplane because they had

the most performance, the
most speed, ability to climb.

And a friend of mine, Jack
Conroy, we were talking,

I said, "Why don't we fly to New
York and back in a Lear?"

So we did.

It went up really
nice, because

we took his kids along.

Flew from Los Angeles
to Wichita, refuel.

Bill Lear was there,
and his wife, Moya,

and we flew to New York and
had lunch with Jack Dempsey.

And then we flew to
Tulsa and refueled.

And back in Los Angeles,

set a record that still
stands by the way,

for that size aircraft
10 hours 52 minutes.

We got there well before
sunset. Jack's boys

had baseball games that
night, little league baseball,

and we got back in time for them

to make their games
at 6:00 o'clock.

Little Lear was just a great
airplane and do anything

you wanted to do.

So it was a great day.

- Learjet was certainly
an innovator when it came

to creating the business jet
as a new class of aircraft.

However, they also innovated
on many other features

that helped improve
the planes performance.

You may have seen those little
tips on the end of wings,

they're called winglets,

and Learjet was one of the
first to experiment with them.

Now we'll hear from
Camille Calibeo

to learn more about winglets
and exactly how they work.

- How do winglets work?

Some airplanes have wingtips
that stick up at an angle,

these are called winglets,

and they do a lot of work
to ensure airplane flight

is as efficient as possible.

Learjet was one of the
first manufacturers

to experiment with winglets
on their production airplanes.

As an airplane flies,

the air under the wings is
at a higher pressure than

the air on top of the wings.

This is what generates
the lift that keeps

the plane in the air.

But at the tips of the wings,

the high pressure air from
the bottom bleeds upward into

the low pressure air on the top.

This actually creates mild
tornadoes of swirling air behind

the wings that
cause a lot of drag.

Overcoming drag takes
a lot of energy,

which means it takes
a lot of jet fuel.

So we wanna decrease
drag as much as possible.

Winglets help us do this.

They decrease the size

of those little tornadoes
behind the wings,

thus decreasing drag and
the amount of fuel needed.

But why is this important?

First, jet fuel
is very expensive.

So the more fuel a plane needs,

the more expensive an
airline ticket could be.

Winglets reduce fuel consumption

by approximately 4% to
5% per plane per year.

This might not seem like a lot,

but winglets on a
Boeing 767, for example,

reduce fuel consumption by over

half a million gallons
per plane per year.

They also dramatically reduce
carbon dioxide emissions.

So for a Boeing 767,

this equates to reducing
carbon dioxide emissions

by nearly 5,000 metric tons
for each plane every year.

- As far as designing
and building aircraft,

I think we were years ahead
of a lot of our competition.

You know, we, our
technology was there.

We, you know, constantly
invested in the future,

tried to stay up with
the changing times.

- We had a advanced
design department

that was always looking at
the scene outside, you know,

there's a market niche
here, a market niche there.

And do we wanna go after that?

And if we wanna go after that,

can we get one of our
airplanes to fit that?

And that's how the
evolution would take place.

You'd find a need,

and you'd go fill that need
and try and do it better

than the competition.

- As Learjet established
this new class of airplane,

the business jet, competing
aviation companies,

including Cessna and
Beechcraft took note.

For all of Bill Lear's genius,

Learjet was a relatively
small company and low on cash.

Changing consumer preferences
towards larger jets,

and an increase in competition,

would prove to be another
challenge for Learjet.

With the newly established
market and a new demand

for business jets,
the competition came,
and it came fast.

- As Learjet was emerging
there were three or four

other aircraft being developed
about that same time.

So there was this
race to be first,

race to be the most,
to be the best.

Because of the synergy of these
various corporate jet models

at a time when the
propeller airplanes

were flying 150,
250 miles an hour,

the corporate jet just
plain took over

and this is now basically
a corporate jet industry.

There are still propeller
airplanes flying,

and they do a very good job,

but the glamour, the pizazz
of business aviation remains

with the corporate jet,

and Learjet has to be in
the forefront of that.

It was the first. It
was the most glamorous.

It was the most talked about
and sort of set the pace,

I think, for the
industry to follow.

Others have done a lot of
great work in the meantime.

Cessna has delivered
more corporate jets
than anybody else.

And this, they're all made
right here in Wichita as well.

But Learjet, I think people
would give it the consensus

that it was sort
of the trendsetter.

- The Learjet factory
here was delivering about,

right before the downturn,
about almost 70 Learjets a year.

After the downturn, that fell.

And then there were some other
things going on at that time.

A lot of competitors
came into that space,

and there was a lean toward

the mid-size and
the larger jets.

With Learjet and Bill Lear,
they quickly ran out of money.

So they sold to Gates,

and then they sold to
an investment firm,

and then Bombardier
bought them in 1990,

kind of out of
financial distress

- Learjet was obviously
purchased by Bombardier

It was something of a distressed
product at that point.

Bombardier made
a good purchase.

And they ran the company
through the nineties

in a pretty aggressive fashion,

lots of R&D money
invested, and so on.

But in later years,
two things happened.

Bombardier expanded the
airplane products they had.

We had the Learjets, and then
they had the Challenger line.

And then they started
adding a stretch Challenger

that they called the CRJ.

That particular model took off.

And they built hundreds of
those airplanes for all sorts

of airlines, regional airliners.

And for that matter,

major airlines buy their
airplanes in fleets.

So you had production that
was stretching out years.

I think it spread the
situation at Bombardier so thin

that they had to start looking
at ways to consolidate.

- It's been a struggle
for almost 60 years,

and it looks like the end is
about to come here in 2021,

and it's too bad because
it is the end of an era.

The industry will go on,

it will continue to
thrive and succeed,

but without the Learjet
brand as emerging as one of

the preeminent airplanes
being produced and delivered.

- Makes me really sad.

Seemed like everybody
that owned the place,

they're always, seem
like short on cash.

So you struggled.

I saw such a great
future for this company.

- Sad for us to learn this
year that Bombardier had made

the decision not to
continue to make Learjets.

They still have a few on
the assembly line right now,

and they'll continue
deliveries to

the end of this year, 2021.

But Bombardier made a
decision, internally,

that they just weren't
selling enough of them to keep

the production line going.

And they are really focusing
on the larger airplanes where

they make a lot more
money, and so forth.

I suppose it could be
resurrected at some point.

We're sad to see it,

but there's still thousands
of Learjets out there in

the world that are
flying and serving

their customers
every single day.

They have been used extensively
in air ambulance transport.

And that particular airplane
that we had and operated for

a number of years, it sits
in front of Wings now,

was used early on in the
air ambulance business

to carry people who had
a serious injury or had

a life-threatening type of
illness and needed to get

to Denver, Colorado, maybe
from an outlying place

to get higher level of care.

They still proved to be
a very viable airplane,

even in today's world with the
economics that we all face.

40 and 50 years old that are
still flying every single day.

- The Learjet legacy will always
live on and retain its name

as the cache of the world's
first private business jet.

- It set the standard for
performance for speed.

That very first little
seed that Learjet planted

has grown into all the business
jets in the world right now.

The Learjet is the
granddaddy of all of them.

And it's a tremendous performing
wonderful little airplane.

- The production
side is going away,

but Learjet isn't going away.

Bombardier has a
program that says,

bring your jet home.

- The support of
our service center

to bring aircraft back in.

Our operators absolutely
love the plane.

So bring them back
in, refurb them.

- The team is very engaged
and they're all in.

There, you know,
they wanna you know,

get all the way to the end,
and build the last unit.

- Even though they will stop
making Learjets brand new

the end of this year,

I think we'll continue
on for many, many years.

That Learjet name
and Learjet legacy

that Bill Lear started
back in the 1960s

is still felt by
all of us today.

- An icon of the industry, a
pace setter in the industry.

It created a whole segment
of the marketplace.

- I can't imagine my
life without the Learjet.

Important time of my life,
learning the business,

learning how to conduct
myself as a professional,

and to be at the center of
the business jet industry

with the leader of the
business jet industry,

almost too much to hope for.

And we had a great
time doing it.

- Even after the last Learjet
rolls off the assembly line,

the airplanes and their
impact on aviation remain.

From Bill Lear's vision to
create the first business jet

to its rise and popular
culture and record-setting

performance achievements,

Learjet forever shaped
the landscape of
modern-day aviation.

Learjet production
may be shutting down,

but its name and its
legacy are here to stay.

(upbeat music)