Born: United States of America
Primarily active in: United States of America

1928-2025

Bill Peck, Piasecki/Boeing Engineer

William “Bill” Burr Peck was born on June 3, 1928, in New Milford, Connecticut to Howard H. and Mildred (Bennett) Peck. After graduating from New Milford High School in June 1945, he attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, graduating with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering in December 1948. He finished in three and a half years under the war-time accelerated curriculum.

He began his career in 1949 as a structural engineer at Piasecki Helicopter Corporation in Morton, Pennsylvania. Peck enjoyed a distinguished career with influential positions on a variety of different rotorcraft programs. In 1951, he worked in the tandem-rotor HUP/H-25 stress group as an analyst, under stress lead Ken Grina, who would eventually become the company’s director of engineering.

In 1956 the company was renamed Vertol and then acquired by Boeing in 1960. Peck advanced to the position of chief of stress in 1960 and by 1964 had become Boeing Vertol’s head of technology.

Peck’s introduction to tiltrotors began with his experience as a member of the team developing the Vertol VZ-2 experimental tilt-wing aircraft, which featured three-bladed rotors. Additionally, Peck worked on the CH-46 Sea Knight and the civilian V-107-II tandem helicopters. He provided support for New York Airways for their helicopter shuttle service, which famously included operation from the roof of the Pan Am building in Manhattan.

In 1971, Peck worked on the Model 222 tiltrotor proposal to NASA. In 1972, the Vertol 222 passed initial downselection, along with Bell’s model 301; in the end, however, NASA selected the Bell 301 to be the XV-15 for further development.

Peck spent time in a customer support and accident investigation role, traveling to Labrador investigating an H-21 rotor failure, to Thule Air Base, Greenland, and later to Vietnam to investigate several H-46 incidents. Beginning in 1970, he was part of the Boeing Vertol proposal to the Army for the A-X Close Air Support fixed wing program, a competition ultimately won by Fairchild for the A-10 Warthog.

He was also part of the collaboration with the DuPont Company to develop composite materials for aerospace applications, now an industry standard.

Peck was involved with the effort by Boeing to negotiate with Germany’s MBB (later part of Airbus Helicopters) to be a North American licensee for the Bo 105. This never materialized due to reticence from Boeing corporate management in Seattle, but Boeing did obtain valuable experience with the rigid rotor design, which was later applied to the Boeing UH-61 rotor design that lost out to the Sikorsky Black Hawk in 1976. The mid-1970s brought the Navy’s Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) program for Peck, with Boeing proposing their marinized version of the YU-61 to the Navy. Unfortunately, the Navy selected the Sikorsky entry, the SH-60 Seahawk.

Boeing’s tiltrotor experience would eventually pay off with the JVX program, which ultimately became the highly successful V-22 Osprey. Peck, as deputy director of JVX Engineering was part of the initial Boeing team that worked with partner Bell Helicopter in Ft. Worth, Texas, on aircraft configuration, coordination with the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), and the work split between Bell and Boeing. The V-22 effort was the pinnacle of a career filled with many varied, impactful projects. In his last position, prior to retiring, he led the effort for the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) variant.

Peck was a lifetime member of VFS, active for many years, publishing several papers and involved in a number of Annual Forums. After an accomplished 38-year tenure working his entire career for Boeing, Peck retired in 1987.

As a longtime resident of Wallingford, Peck’s community efforts included serving on the school board of the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District, holding the position of Nether Providence Township Commissioner, and as Chair of the Helen Kate Furness Free Library's 2000 renovation project. Over the last 15 years, he was very active with the Care for Friends meals program, and in recent years provided food-assistance to the ACCESS Community Center in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 2023 he provided over 8,200 home cooked meals for local residents of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, facing food insecurity, and in 2024 Peck topped that by providing over 8,700 meals .

William “Bill” Burr Peck, age 96, passed away on March 20, 2025, after a short illness. He was a longtime resident of Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and most recently of Garnet Valley, Pennsylvania, both Philadelphia suburbs.

Society Updates: In Memoriam, Vertiflite, July/August 2025