William Lear Inducted into Electronic Design Engineering Hall of Fame

"Don't tell your children this--William Lear left school in the eighth grade and joined the navy at age 16."

So begins an article about Lear (1902-1978) in Electronic Design, a leading electronics trade magazine, announcing his inductance into its Engineering Hall of Fame.

When he was 20, Lear founded his first company, Quincy Radio Laboratory. While at Quincy he developed a successful radio for automobiles and later sold the rights to Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, which became the Motorola Corporation.

Lear's interest in flight and his electronics expertise led him to develop a reliable radio compass for pilots and an automatic version that kept planes on course by monitoring the direction of known radio transmitters.

Lear's most famous development was the Learjet. In 1966, a Learjet 24 set 18 world records when it flew around the world in 50.3 hours.

Self-taught William Lear received more than 100 patents for his many inventions. You can learn more about Lear in an Electronics Design article about his Hall of Fame honor (Doris Kilbane, "William Lear: Aviation Legend Makes Waves In Audio," 20 October 2005) and by searching on his name on the web.

Forrest M. Mims III