Boeing Model 1

The Boeing Model 1, also known as the B & W Seaplane, was a United States single-engine biplane seaplane and the first product of the company, named for its designers William Boeing and Lieutenant Conrad Westervelt of the US Navy. The first aircraft was completed in June 1916 at Boeing's boathouse hangar on Lake Union in Seattle; built of wood with wire bracing and linen covering, it resembled the Martin trainer that Boeing owned but had better pontoons and a more powerful engine. The two aircraft, named Bluebill and Mallard, were offered to the Navy and, when it did not buy them, sold to the New Zealand Flying School as Boeing's first international sale. One set a New Zealand altitude record in 1919 and made the country's first official airmail flight that December. In 1966 Boeing built a modernized replica, the Model 1A.