MCDONNELL DOUGLAS

McDonnell Douglas was a prominent American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor resulting from the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. At the time of its merger with Boeing in 1997, McDonnell Douglas produced several well-known commercial and military aircraft, including the DC-10 and the MD-80 airliners, the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter, and the F/A-18 Hornet multirole fighter. The corporation was headquartered near St. Louis, Missouri, at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. The companies forming McDonnell Douglas were founded by James Smith McDonnell and Donald Wills Douglas, both alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had previously worked for Glenn L. Martin Company. McDonnell founded his own company, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, in 1938, while Douglas established the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1921. The latter had produced about 10,000 C-47s, a military variant of the Douglas DC-3, during World War II. The company moved into jet propulsion, developing the F3D Skyknight in 1948 and introducing the U.S. Navy’s first attack jet, the A4D Skyhawk, in 1955. Following the war, both companies faced a decrease in demand, but Douglas continued to produce new aircraft, including the DC-6 and DC-7.