The McDonnell Douglas Story

About this book

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. Following Boeings 1996 acquisition of Rockwells North American division McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in August 1997 in a US $13 billion stock swap with Boeing as the surviving company. But until then McDonnell Douglas Corporation was the largest Aerospace company in the country with backorders that totaled billions of dollars. The aerospace technology developed by their various divisions (much of which carried a Secret classification) helped insure that America would be militarily strong as well as being a leader in producing safe air transportation for the airlines of the world. Furthermore there were many by-products of the Space Age that were developed by the company which gave us goods and services for a better way of life. In this book you will fly with test pilots when they break through the once-feared Sound Barrier; see the birth of a giant wide-bodied airliner the DC-10; meet two men Mr. Douglas and Mr. McDonnell who founded this aerospace giant meet Astronauts on their way to the moon; sit in on executive meetings and see the giants of industry at work; and meet the engineers who design the latest spacecraft and the production workers who turn these dreams into hardware. It will make you proud to be an American.