HISTORY
The company was formed from
the firms of James Smith
McDonnell and Donald Wills
Douglas. Both men were of
Scottish ancestry, graduates
of MIT and had worked for
the aircraft manufacturer
Glenn L. Martin Company. McDonnell
Douglas retained McDonnell
Aircraft's headquarters
location at Lambert-St.
Louis International Airport,
in Berkeley, Missouri, near
St. Louis.
In 1967, with the merger of
McDonnell and Douglas
Aircraft, Dave Lewis, then
president of McDonnell, was
named chairman of what was
called the Long Beach,
Douglas Aircraft Division.
At the time of the merger,
Douglas Aircraft was
estimated to be less than a
year from bankruptcy. Flush
with orders, the DC-8 and
DC-9 aircraft were 9 to 18
months behind schedule,
incurring stiff penalties
from the airlines. Lewis was
active in DC-10 sales in an
intense competition with
Lockheed's L-1011,
a rival tri-jet aircraft. In
two years, Lewis had the
operation back on track and
in positive cash flow. He
returned to the company's
St. Louis headquarters where
he continued sales efforts
on the DC-10 and managed the
company as a whole as
President and Chief
Operating Officer through
1971.
The DC-10 began production
in 1968 with the first
deliveries in 1971.
Several artists impressions
exist of an aircraft named
the "DC-10 Twin" or DC-X
which McDonnell Douglas
considered in the early
1970s but never built.
This would have been an
early twinjet similar to the
later Airbus A300, but never
progressed to a prototype.
This could have given
McDonnell Douglas an early
lead in the huge twinjet
market that subsequently
developed, as well as
commonality with much of the
DC-10's systems.
In 1977, the next generation
of DC-9 variants, dubbed the
"Super
80"
(later renamed the MD-80) series,
was launched.
In 1977 the KC-10
Extender was
the second McDonnell Douglas
transport aircraft to be
selected for use by the US
Air Force; the first being
the C-9 Nightingale/Skytrain
II.
Through the years of the
Cold War McDonnell Douglas
had introduced and
manufactured dozens of
successful military
aircraft, including the F-15
Eagle in
1974, the F/A-18 Hornet in
1978, and other products
such as the Harpoon and
Tomahawk missiles. The oil
crisis of the 1970s was a
serious shock to the
commercial aviation
industry, as a major
manufacturer of commercial
aircraft at the time,
McDonnell Douglas was hit by
the economic shift and
forced to contract heavily
while diversifying into new
areas to reduce the impact
of potential future
downturns.
In 1984, McDonnell Douglas
expanded into helicopters by
purchasing Hughes
Helicopters from
the Summa Corporation for
$470 million. Hughes
Helicopters was made a
subsidiary initially and
renamed McDonnell
Douglas Helicopter Systems in
August 1984. McDonnell
Douglas Helicopters's most
successful product was the
Hughes-designed AH-64
Apache attack
helicopter.
In 1986 MD-11 was
launched, an improved and
upgraded version of DC-10.
The MD-11 was the most
advanced trijet aircraft to
be developed. It sold 200
units, but was discontinued
in 2001 after the merger
with Boeing as it competed
with the Boeing
777. The
final commercial aircraft
design to be made by
McDonnell Douglas came in
1988. The MD-90 was
a stretched version of the
MD-80, equipped with
International Aero Engines
V2500 turbofans, the largest
rear-mounted engines ever on
a commercial jet. The MD-95,
a modern regional airliner
closely resembling the
DC-9-30, was the last
McDonnell Douglas designed
commercial jet produced.
On 13 January 1988,
McDonnell Douglas and General
Dynamics won
the US Navy Advanced
Tactical Aircraft (ATA)
contract. The US$4.83
billion contract was to
develop the A-12
Avenger II,
a stealthy, carrier-based,
long-range flying wing
attack aircraft that would
replace the A-6 Intruder.
Technical issues,
development cost overruns,
growing unit costs, and
delays led to the
termination of the program
on 13 January 1991 by
Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney. Years of litigation
would proceed over the
contract's termination: the
government claimed that the
contractors had defaulted on
the contract and were not
entitled to the final
progress payments, while
McDonnell Douglas and
General Dynamics believed
that the contract was
terminated out of
convenience and thus the
money was owed. The case
continues to sit in
litigation in 2011.
The chaos and financial
stress created by the
collapse of the A-12 program
led to the layoff of 5,600
employees. The
advanced tactical aircraft
role vacated by the A-12
debacle would be filled by
another McDonnell Douglas
program, the F/A-18E/F Super
Hornet.
However the purchasing of
aircraft was curtailed as
the Cold War came to an
abrupt end in the 1990s.
This curtailment in military
procurements combined with
the loss of the contracts
for two major projects, the
Advanced Tactical Fighter
and Joint Strike Fighter,
severely hurt McDonnell
Douglas.
In 1991, MD-11 was not quite
a success, ongoing tests of
the MD-11 revealed a
significant shortfall in the
aircraft's performance. An
important prospective
carrier, Singapore Airlines
(SIA), required a fully
laden aircraft that could
fly from Singapore to Paris,
against strong headwinds
during mid-winter; the MD-11
did not have sufficient
range for this at the time.
Due to the
less-than-expected
performance figures, SIA
cancelled its 20-aircraft
MD-11 order on 2 August
1991, and ordered 20
A340-300s instead.
In 1992,
McDonnell
Douglas unveiled
a study of a
double deck
jumbo-sized
aircraft
designated MD-12.
Despite briefly
leaving the
market, the
study was
perceived as
merely a public
relations
exercise to
disguise the
fact that MDC
was struggling
under intense
pressure from
Boeing and
Airbus. It was
clear to most in
the industry
that MDC had
neither the
resources nor
the money to
develop such a
large aircraft,
and the study
quickly sank
without a trace.
A similar double
deck concept was
used in Boeing's
later
Ultra-Large
Aircraft study
intended to
replace the 747,
but ultimately
the double deck
concept would
not see the
light of day
until the Airbus
A380 in the
2000s.
Following Boeing's 1996
acquisition of
Rockwell's North
American
division,
McDonnell
Douglas merged
with Boeing in
August 1997 in a
US$13 billion
stock-swap to
create The
Boeing Company.
Source:
Wikipedia
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