Mr. Navcom

William Powell Lear is an inventive genius whose restless mind and huge energies have made him, at 56, the head of a $64 million business turning out close to 700 navigational, communications and control systems and devices for planes and missiles. Although he quit school in the eighth grade, Lear can sketch a complete instrument system for a single-engined plane or a jet transport on a nightclub napkin. In 1950, despite his well-earned reputation as a stay-up-all-night playboy, he won the Collier Trophy for distinguished service to aviation as a designer-manufacturer. In 1956 he achieved a different kind of notoriety by flying his Cessna 310 to Moscow on an impromptu tourist trip (TIME, July 9, 1956), stirred up a storm in Washington, which feared, wrongly, that he planned to sell the Russians his products.

Last week restless Bill Lear was off to something new, as usual. In West Los Angeles he opened a $250,000 laboratory to put his company into solid-state physics in his search for new products. Among far-out fields to be studied: microcircuitry (e.g., reducing the chassis of a satellite television unit to a few cubic inches) and electroluminescence (e.g., picturing all of a plane's instrument readings on a cockpit window so the pilot will not have to glance away even when landing or taking off). While moving farther into the wild blue yonder, he is also readying new gadgets for planes. His newest commercial product: the $1,500 Navcom (combination communications and navigation instrument box), which puts even single-engined or twin-engined executive-type planes on a par with big commercial airliners when flying on instruments through rough weather.

From Hannibal to Space. Inventor Lear's restlessness hit early. Born in Hannibal, Mo., Mark Twain's home town, he enlisted in the Navy at 16, was made a radio instructor at the Great Lakes Training Station. He learned so much that, discharged at 18, he soon opened his own radio consulting and manufacturing firm. Among his early jobs: designing a special coil that made possible the first practical commercial auto radio. He learned to fly, and in 1930 opened an aviation-electronics business that turned out the first practical light-plane radio. After World War II, Lear burgeoned as the world's largest manufacturer of autopilots and a major supplier of other gadgets for planes and a dozen missiles, including the Titan, Bomarc, Polaris and Nike-Zeus. On the side, after three quick marriages, Lear settled down with Wife No. 4, Moya Olsen, daughter of Olsen of the Olsen & Johnson comedy team. His own enthusiasm for flying is so great that Mrs. Lear, in self-defense, is taking flying lessons. Their two boys, 15 and 9, are already flyers, and at times Lear has put even youngest daughter Tina, 3 1/2, at the controls.

To Lear, his company's growth is only the beginning. He thinks that a whole new market is opening up in the fast-growing field of private flying, predicts that it will expand fourfold by 1965, is spending $1,200,000 a year on new-product research. To make the crowded air safer, the CAB last year drafted a proposed order directing planes intending to fly in all weather to install airline-quality equipment by 1961. The order roused such protests on grounds of expense that it was withdrawn. Lear is confident that a similar order will eventually be issued, says his low-priced Navcom meets all the Government requirements.

Looking for More. Lear also would like to crack the market for instruments used on the big airliners. His autopilot, other instruments and fuel pumps are used on the Air Force's KC-135 tanker-transport (the military version of the Boeing 707); Lear instruments are also used on the French Sud Aviation Caravelle jet airliners, but so far major U.S. commercial lines have hesitated to buy. Their reasons are that Lear's record for quality control, service and stocking spare parts has fallen short of the ingenuity of his inventions. Said one major airline executive last week: "If he got his standards up, he could put everybody else out of business."

Lately Lear has shown that he is finally aware of such shortcomings. He has beefed up the service department, and a fortnight ago he shook up his top management to get in position for a concentrated attack on building markets and improving products. In the shift, Vice President James L. Anast, 40, former aide in Washington to Federal Aviation Boss Pete Quesada, moved up to president as Richard Mock became chairman of the executive committee.

Even without the big airliners, Lear has been doing well enough. Piedmont Airlines, a feeder line, has installed Lear instrument-landing equipment on eight of its planes, has found it "very satisfactory." Ozark Air Lines, another feeder, has also signed up. Lear profits in the first quarter of its fiscal year ran 33% ahead of 1958 (which registered an 87% gain over 1957) to better than $400,000. The backlog of firm orders was up to $77 million, biggest in the company's history, and a 10-c- dividend was declared, the third such quarterly dividend in a row. Last week Bill Lear was looking for more. He got ready to fly to Japan to line up Japanese engineering and manufacturing talent for production of a new private plane to cash in on the world market for private flying.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.