McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produced well-known commercial and military aircraft, such as the DC-10 airliner, the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter, the MD-80 airliner, and the F/A-18 Hornet multirole fighter.
The McDonnell Aircraft Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer based in St. Louis, Missouri. The company was founded on July 6, 1939, by James Smith McDonnell, and was best known for its military fighters, including the F-4 Phantom II, and crewed spacecraft including the Mercury capsule and Gemini capsule. McDonnell Aircraft later merged with the Douglas Aircraft Company to form McDonnell Douglas in 1967.
Octave Chanute was a French-American civil engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided many budding enthusiasts, including the Wright brothers, with help and advice, and helped to publicize their flying experiments. At his death he was hailed as the father of aviation and the initial concepts of the heavier-than-air flying machine.
Donald Wills Douglas Sr. was an American aircraft industrialist and engineer.
James Smith "Mac" McDonnell was an American aviator, engineer, and businessman. He was an aviation pioneer and founder of McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, later McDonnell Douglas, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.
David Sloan Lewis, Jr. was an aeronautical engineer who led aerospace and defense giant General Dynamics for 14 years.
Robert Channing Seamans Jr. was an MIT professor who served as NASA Deputy Administrator and 9th United States Secretary of the Air Force.
The Wright Brothers Medal was conceived of in 1924 by the Dayton Section of the Society of Automotive Engineers, and the SAE established it in 1927 to recognize individuals who have made notable contributions in the engineering, design, development, or operation of air and space vehicles. The award is based on contributed research papers.
Michael John Wendl is an engineer who worked at the McDonnell-Douglas Corporation, mainly in the area of aerospace control. He is noted primarily as one of the early developers of terrain following technology and a proponent of incorporating energy management theory into the design of fighter aircraft. He won the Wright Brothers Medal in 1974 with Ralph Pruitt, Gordon G. Grose, and J. L. Porter for a paper discussing future aircraft designs that integrate fly-by-wire controls with engine inlets/nozzles and advanced pilot displays.
Gordon Glen Grose was an engineer at the McDonnell-Douglas Corporation. He won the Wright Brothers Medal in 1974 with Michael J. Wendl, J. L. Porter, and Ralph Pruitt for a paper discussing future aircraft designs that integrate fly-by-wire controls with engine inlets/nozzles and advanced pilot displays.
V. Ralph Pruitt was an engineer at McDonnell Douglas who won the Wright Brothers Medal in 1974 with Michael J. Wendl, Gordon G. Grose, and J. L. Porter for a paper discussing future aircraft designs that integrate fly-by-wire controls with engine inlets/nozzles and advanced pilot displays.
Dwight Henry Bennett was an aeronautical engineer and one of the early developers of the control configured vehicle (CCV) concept. He won the Wright Brothers Medal in 1972 with R. P. Johannes for the paper Combat Capabilities and Versatility Through CCV, discussing its applications.
Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson was an American aeronautical and systems engineer. He is recognized for his contributions to a series of important aircraft designs, most notably the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird. Besides the first production aircraft to exceed Mach 3, he also produced the first fighter capable of Mach 2, the United States' first operational jet fighter, as well as the first fighter to exceed 400 mph, and many other contributions to various aircraft.
Peter Frank "Pete" Girard was a United States Army Air Forces pilot, Chief Engineering Test Pilot for Ryan Aeronautical, and the first man to hover in jet vertical flight. This feat was accomplished November 24, 1953 during tests that would culminate in the development of the Ryan X-13 Vertijet. He would later accomplish the first full-cycle vertical takeoff, horizontal flight, and vertical landing in a jet aircraft on April 11, 1957 at Edwards Air Force Base. Prior to working with Ryan, Girard had worked at Curtiss-Wright in St. Louis, Missouri and served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator pilot.
Ken Blackburn is the former Guinness World Record holder for paper airplanes. His first set the record in 1983, resetting it in 1987, 1994 lost the record in 1996 and set the record of 27.6 seconds on 10/8/98 in the Georgia Dome.
Earl Schuyler (Sky) Kleinhans was an airplane and flying boat aeronautical engineering pioneer with primary experience at Sikorsky and Douglas Aircraft where he advanced over a 36-year career to become chief engineer and retired as the chairman of the scientific advisory board in 1969 for McDonnell Douglas.
John F. Yardley was an American engineer who worked for the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He joined McDonnell in 1946, and contributed to the design and development of aircraft such as the McDonnell FH Phantom, F2H Banshee and F-101 Voodoo.
John Francis McCarthy Jr. was an American scientist and engineer. He worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as director of its Center for Space Research; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the director of its Lewis Research Center; the United States Air Force, where he served with the Strategic Air Command and as a member of the United States Air Force Scientific Advisory Board; North American Rockwell, where he oversaw the design and development of the Apollo command and service module that took the first men to the Moon, and the S-II of the Saturn V rocket. His work doubled, and in the case of the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, tripled, the service life of aircraft.
Edwin Foresman Schoch was a United States Navy aeronautical engineer, combat pilot and test pilot.
