About 1970, I commenced getting rumors that the retired president of General Motors, Ed Cole, had started a company to develop a family of large airplanes for the purpose of delivering cars, parts and general cargo worldwide at vastly reduced rates. I then heard that T. A. Wilson, present Chairman of Boeing, had learned of the rather extraordinary wind tunnel results from models, tested at Michigan University. He flew to Detroit, met Ed Cole, and a deal was struck whereby Boeing would build the airplanes under a joint venture with Cole's Company, called International Husky.

Then, some publicity pictures of the aircraft, now called the Boeing 754, began appearing in the Aviation Press. It was not surprising to me to see that the Boeing 754 was a direct steal from existing Burnelli patents. Shortly thereafter, I received a call in my London home from a European Airline President, who was in Seattle picking up a new B-727. He said that Boeing's Vice President Sales, Clarence Wilde, had introduced him to Ed Cole. The two of them took him to a hangar to see the airplane of the future which, they advised, he should sign up for right away! My friend took one look at the mock-up and exclaimed: "Good God, it's a Burnelli!" "What about Burnelli and Slick Goodlin?" Wilde and Cole replied: "Oh, they are being taken care of." What was meant by that is yet to be determined.

(continued...)

TAXI DRIVER

"I am not exactly the type to sit around a club waiting for something to happen," says Edward N. Cole,, 67, former president of General Motors. Even before he retired in 1974, Cole got active in a company called International Husky. Its lofty aim is to revolutionize the country's airfreight system, using a giant new jet cargo plane, the Boeing 754. Yet to be built, the B754 would lift almost twice the tonnage of an Air Force C5A, the present heavyweight champ. Cole-an engineer who has amassed about twenty patents-also set about adapting an internal combustion engine to use pollution-free fuels..