George Schairer, Research Chief at Boeing
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George Swift Schairer, a scientist whose discovery of Nazi wind tunnel research played a crucial role in the development of swept wing jets, died Thursday in Seattle. He was 91.
Schairer, Boeing’s vice president for research, was instrumental in developing military and civilian aircraft that made billions for the company.
He was Boeing’s vice president for research and development from 1959 to 1973 and for research until he retired in 1978.
Near the end of World War II, while serving in the Army Signal Corps, he and other scientists encountered documents on German wind tunnel tests of a swept-wing design for aircraft equipped with the newly developed jet engine. After the war, Shairer used the German research in designing such landmark aircraft as the B-47 and B-52 bombers and 707 passenger jet.
