He left in 1938 to try again with his own firm, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, based at St. Louis, Missouri in 1939.[3]World War II was a major boost to the new company. It grew from 15 employees in 1939 to 5,000 at the end of the war and became a significant aircraft parts producer, and developed the XP-67 Bat fighter prototype.[4] McDonnell also developed the LBD-1 Gargoyleguided missile.[5] McDonnell Aircraft suffered after the war with an end of government orders and a surplus of aircraft, and heavily cut its workforce. The advent of the Korean War helped push McDonnell into a major military fighter supply role.
An FH-1 Phantom in 1948
In 1943, McDonnell began developing jets when they were invited to bid in a US Navy contest and eventually built the successful FH-1 Phantom in the postwar era. The Phantom introduced McDonnell's telltale design with engines placed forward under the fuselage and exiting just behind the wing, a layout that was used successfully on the F2H Banshee, F3H Demon, and the F-101 Voodoo. David S. Lewis joined the company as Chief of Aerodynamics in 1946. He led the development of the legendary F-4 Phantom II in 1954, which was introduced into service in 1960. Lewis became Executive Vice President in 1958, and finally became President and Chief Operating Officer in 1962.
McDonnell made a number of missiles, including the pioneering Gargoyle and unusual ADM-20 Quail, as well as experimenting with hypersonic flight, research that enabled them to gain a substantial share of the NASA projects Mercury and Gemini. The success of the Mercury capsule led the company adopted a new logo features the capsule circling a globe with the motto "First Free Man in Space".[1] The company was now a major employer, but was having problems. It had almost no civilian business, and was thus vulnerable to any peacetime downturn in procurement.
Meanwhile, Douglas Aircraft was reeling from cash flow problems and development costs. It was also having a hard time meeting demand. The two companies began sounding each other out about a merger in 1963. On paper, they were a good match. Douglas' civilian business would have been more than enough to allow McDonnell to withstand any downturns in military procurement, while the cash flow from McDonnell's military contracts would have given Douglas badly-needed security. Douglas formally accepted McDonnell's offer in December 1966, and the two firms officially merged on April 28, 1967, as the McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC). Soon after the merger was announced, McDonnell bought 1.5 million shares of Douglas stock to help Douglas meet "immediate financial requirements".[6] McDonnell management dominated the merged company. It was based at McDonnell's facility in St. Louis, with James McDonnell as chairman and CEO.[7] In 1967, with the merger of McDonnell and Douglas Aircraft, David Lewis, then president of McDonnell, was named chairman of what was called the Douglas Aircraft Division. After managing the turnaround of the division, he returned to St. Louis in 1969 as president of McDonnell Douglas.
The McDonnell FH Phantom is a twinjet, straight-wing, carrier-based fighter aircraft designed and first flown during late World War II for the United States Navy. As a first-generation jet fighter, the Phantom was the first purely jet-powered aircraft to land on an American aircraft carrier and the first jet deployed by the United States Marine Corps. Although only 62 FH-1s were built it helped prove the viability of carrier-based jet fighters. As McDonnell's first successful fighter, it led to the development of the follow-on F2H Banshee, which was one of the two most important naval jet fighters of the Korean War; combined, the two established McDonnell as an important supplier of navy aircraft.
McDonnell Douglas Corporation 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 and the MD-80 airliners, the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter, and the F/A-18 Hornet multirole fighter.
The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace and defense company based in Southern California. Founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr., it merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas, where it operated as a division. McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1997.
The McDonnell F3H Demon is a subsonic swept-wing carrier-based jet fighter aircraft designed and produced by the American manufacturer McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. It was the first swept wing jet fighter and the only single-engined carrier-based fighter the company produced.
Donald Wills Douglas Sr. was an American aircraft industrialist and engineer.
The Boeing Bird of Prey is an American black project aircraft, intended to demonstrate stealth technology. It was developed by McDonnell Douglas and Boeing in the 1990s. The company provided $67 million of funding for the project; it was a low-cost program compared to many other programs of similar scale. It developed technology and materials which would later be used on Boeing's X-45 unmanned combat air vehicle. As an internal project, this aircraft was not given an X-plane designation. There are no public plans to make this a production aircraft. It is characterized as a technology demonstrator.
The Douglas World Cruiser (DWC) was developed to meet a requirement from the United States Army Air Service for an aircraft suitable for an attempt at the first flight around the world. The Douglas Aircraft Company responded with a modified variant of their DT torpedo bomber, the DWC.
The Douglas DC-4E was an American experimental airliner that was developed before World War II. The DC-4E never entered production due to being superseded by an entirely new design, the Douglas DC-4/C-54, which proved very successful.
Boeing Phantom Works is the advanced prototyping arm of the defense and security side of Boeing. Its primary focus is developing advanced military products and technologies, many of them highly classified.
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.
John F. McDonnell is an American businessman, engineer, and philanthropist. McDonnell served as the chairman of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation from 1988 until its merger with Boeing in 1997 and its chief executive officer from 1988 until 1994. He was a corporate director at Boeing from the 1997 merger until 2012, when he reached the Boeing-mandated retirement age of 74.
David Sloan Lewis Jr. was an American aeronautical engineer who led aerospace and defense giant General Dynamics for 14 years.
The McDonnell 119/220 is a business jet developed and unsuccessfully marketed by McDonnell Aircraft in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Its configuration is unique for this type of aircraft, with four podded engines underneath a low wing. It is the only airplane built by McDonnell Aircraft to be marketed to civil buyers prior to the company's merger with Douglas Aircraft to form McDonnell Douglas. The jet could be outfitted for 10 passengers in a luxury executive configuration and could carry as many as 29.
The Breguet 941 is a French four-engine turboprop short takeoff and landing (STOL) transport aircraft developed by Breguet in the 1960s. Although widely promoted, both by Breguet in France and by McDonnell Aircraft and McDonnell Douglas in the United States, it was not built in large numbers; only one prototype and four production aircraft were built.
The McDonnell TD2D Katydid is a pulsejet-powered American target drone produced by McDonnell Aircraft that entered service with the United States Navy in 1942, and continued in use until the late 1940s.
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.
References
Footnotes
↑ This includes aircraft built by McDonnell Douglas and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
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