The two firms were officially merged on Apas the McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC). Douglas offered bid invitations from December 1966 and accepted that of McDonnell. The two companies began to sound each other out about a merger in 1963. Meanwhile, Douglas was strained by the cost of the DC-8 and DC-9. It frequently suffered lean times during downturns in military procurement. McDonnell was primarily a defense contractor, without any significant civilian business. The two companies were now major employers, but both were having problems. Douglas also gained contracts from NASA, notably for part of the enormous Saturn V rocket. McDonnell made a number of missiles, including the unusual ADM-20 Quail, as well as experimenting with hypersonic flight, research that enabled it to gain a substantial share of the NASA projects Mercury and Gemini. Thor Able with Pioneer 1 at Cape Canaveral, Floridaīoth companies were eager to enter the new missile business, Douglas moving from producing air-to-air rockets and missiles to entire missile systems under the 1956 Nike program and becoming the main contractor of the Skybolt ALBM program and the Thor ballistic missile program. Variants of it continued in use in the Navy for almost 50 years, finally serving in large numbers in a two-seat version as a jet trainer. Designed to operate from the decks of the World War II Essex-class aircraft carriers, the Skyhawk was small, reliable, and tough. In 1955, Douglas introduced the first attack jet of the United States Navy with the A4D Skyhawk. The company moved into jet propulsion, producing its first for the military – the conventional F3D Skyknight in 1948 and then the more 'jet age' F4D Skyray in 1951. Both companies suffered at the end of hostilities, facing an end of government orders and a surplus of aircraft.Īfter the war, Douglas continued to develop new aircraft, including the DC-6 in 1946 and the DC-7 in 1953. The company produced almost 30,000 Douglas DC-3 aircraft from 1942 to 1945 and the workforce swelled to 160,000. World War II was a major earner for Douglas. He left Martin in 1938 to try again with his own firm, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, this time based at Lambert Field, outside St. He worked at three companies with the final being Glenn Martin Company in 1933. The economic depression from 1929 ruined his ideas and the company collapsed. His idea was to produce a personal aircraft for family use. McDonnell & Associates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1926. He bought out his backer and renamed the firm the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1921. Douglas had been chief engineer at Martin before leaving to establish Davis-Douglas Company in early 1920 in Los Angeles.