John Williams
March, 1966
The best-known grade school dropout in Wichita, Kansas, is stubby, bullnecked William Powell Lear, who never made it to the eighth grade. Yet he now heads a multimillion-dollar corporation that manufactures and sells executive jet aircraft to people like Frank Sinatra and enterprises like the Fuller Brush Company for $595,000 apiece, including the ashtrays. (His graceful jets are among those pictured in The Contemporary Planesman, Playboy's in-depth survey of executive flight, beginning on page...
