Wings of the dawn

Cmdr. Eugene E. Wilson, long a leading spokesman for the aircraft manufacturing industry, has been intimately associated with significant engineering developments in aviation, including the radial air cooled aircraft engine, the controllable pitch propeller, the long range commercial flying boat, the two-seat dive bomber, and the long-range fighter bomber. An Annapolis graduate, class of 1908, he was appointed Chief of the Engine Section of the Navy, Bureau of Aeronautics by Admiral William A. Moffett in 1924, and in this capacity witnessed the Mitchell controversy at close range. At the age of thirty-nine he became a naval aviator and later, as Chief of Staff of the Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet, helped conceive and organize the first carrier task force. In 1929, while a commander and aviation aide on the staff of the Commander in Chief, Battle Fleet, he resigned from the Navy to accept the presidency of the Hamilton-Standard Propeller Corporation, a subsidiary of United Aircraft and Transportation Corporation. In 1930 he also became president of the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation and in 1931 of the Chance Vought Corporation, occupying these three positions simultaneously for a time. In 1940 he was elected president of United Aircraft Corporation and continued in that position while the company attained its wartime production peak. In 1943, upon being elected chairman of the board of governors of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce, he was made vice-chairman of United Aircraft, in order that he might be able to devote most of his time to general industry affairs. In 1946, in order to be free to write his book, he resigned from his company. In August, 1949, he resigned as chairman of the board of governors of the Aircraft Industry Association in order to be able to express his views without committing his former associates. It is against this unique background of intimate experience in aviation both in the military service and in private industry that this is written.