life and legacy of aviation's renaissance man: Peter M. Bowers, The

Flight Journal, Feb 2001 by Boyne, Walter

Aviation historian/photographer Peter M. Bowers has been associated with aircraft-models first and then full-size-for more than 70 years. He has written hundreds of articles for dozens of magazines and also has many books to his credit. Rare photographs from his unparalleled collection are much sought after and have been published in articles and books written by many others. We are pleased to have this portrait of Peter by Wall Boyne, who vividly captures the life and achievements of a remarkable "renaissance man."

It is July 1939, and the latest issue of Flying Aces magazine has hit the newsstands with its usual splash. Artist August Schomburg's cover shows brilliant yellow and red Polish P.Z.L. P. 37B bombers attacking an invading German column; the P. 37B's strings of bombs wreak havoc below. On page 17, we find the cover story, in which the redoubtable-some would emphasize "doubt"-Arch Whitehouse asks, "Can Poland Repulse the Nazis?" Who cares? Everyone knows there won't be a war; we're looking for Pete Bowers' article. This one is enticingly titled, "Try this unique 'Duck' Gas Buggy" and includes two pages of detailed instructions, five pages of well-drawn plans and three pictures of a beautiful little flying boat not unlike a Douglas Dolphin.

At the bottom of page 44 is a picture of Pete, who grins as he flips the prop on the Brat engine mounted atop the Duck's wing. He should be grinning; he has designed and built a great gasoline-powered model airplane, just earned a good grade on a plan he drew in his mechanical drawing class and sold an article to what many regarded as the USA's premier aircraft magazine for the princely sum of $20. Yet this was all in a day's work for a young man who was destined to become world famous in many fields of aviation and preeminent in several.

Pete has logged more than 8,000 hours of flying time, and for more than 70 years, he has excelled as a model builder, a homebuilt-aircraft designer, photographer, author, columnist, engineer, instructor pilot and avid supporter of dozens of aviation organizations. With a fabulous memory and an exacting eye for detail, for most of those seven decades, Pete has been recognized as the top authority on such diverse topics as aircraft markings, color schemes, production runs, restoration judging, soaring, seaplanes and, of course, several aircraft manufacturers, including Fokker and Boeing. The base for such a prodigious lifetime of achievement is a combination of tireless dedication and a solid foundation of engineering skills.

Professional amateurs and amateur professionals

Pete was born in San Francisco on May 15, 1918 (the same day as the U.S. Air Mail was inaugurated); he began to build model airplanes when he was nine and was soon totally dedicated to aviation. He built his models with scientific rigor and documented their construction with photos. At the invitation of editors who wanted articles about his outstanding models, he was soon writing for publication.

Along with this, Pete developed his own system of "tabletop" model photography-one that made them look as "realistic" as possible. His series of model "combat photos" was published in several national magazines, including the much-read periodical, Look.

At the same time, Pete began his now fabled collection of aircraft photos: he took photographs, bought them from agencies and wrote to manufacturers for "freebies" (they were obviously much more willing then than now).

In 1941, Bowers began to submit photos to "Jane's All the World's Aircraft" yearbook, and he continued this until 1992. In return, Jane's annually sent him a copy of the yearbook-an invaluable collection.

He was soon one of a unique group of photographers whom he now describes as "technical photo nuts"-such as Gordy Williams, Bill Larkins, Harold Martin, Fred Bamberger, Howard Levy and others. They haunted their local airports, taking outstanding photographs. Any airplane would do, but they preferred the military types, and they wanted them "pure"-no people or support equipment and with canopies closed, ailerons centered and no tiedown ropes to mar the view. Pete now bemoans that he passed up dozens of great shots because of some objectionable detail-- a parachute left on the horizontal stabilizer or a fire extinguisher in front of a propeller. Now, he says, those are the very things that would have given the photos even greater historical significance.

Some of this elite group collected only negatives and expanded their collection by making extra prints and trading them with other enthusiasts. (They used the Kodak 616 camera; this allowed the negatives to be a uniform size.) Others, including Pete, also collected prints; Pete sometimes bought them with his high-school lunch money (from gurus such as Joe Nieto or R.R. Martin, who sold them for about a quarter apiece in the 1930s). Pete's collection now stands at approximately 60,000 negatives (50,000 of them filed) and 100,000 photos, and thousands more aren't sorted.