PHOTOS: (Far left) McDonnell Aircraft Corp. manufactured all 20 spacecraft for Project Mercury, which studied the effects of space on astronauts, at its St. Louis facility. BOEING ARCHIVES (Above) McDonnell’s 3,000th F-4 Phantom II. BOEING Frontiers July 2014 13 As a young aeronautical engineer James S. McDonnell, who traded $10—supposed to be used to buy a winter coat—for his first ride in a Curtis Jenny biplane, envisioned every American family with a personal airplane. “A world of flying people will be a world of better people,” he would write. The Great Depression, which began with the 1929 U.S stock market collapse, ended any dream of a plane for every family, but the company McDonnell founded in St. Louis at the end of the 1930s changed the world of aviation and aerospace. McDonnell Aircraft Corp. first made a name for itself as a designer and builder of combat jet fighters for the U.S. Navy. Later, when President John Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the 1960s, McDonnell Aircraft answered the call with the space capsules that carried the first U.S. astronauts into orbit, making possible the moon trips to follow. Today, what was once McDonnell Aircraft is a part of Boeing, one of its many heritage companies. McDonnell Aircraft was incorporated 75 years ago this month, on July 6, 1939, after McDonnell left his job as chief project engineer for land planes with Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Co. in Baltimore, Md., to start his own airplane company. He raised $165,000 in seed money, primarily from family and close friends. Three months after McDonnell Aircraft was incorporated, it opened for business with 15 employees in a 1,600-square-foot (150-square-meter), $100-a-month second-story room in the American Airlines building at the northwest corner of Lambert Field. “A the end of the first year our backlog was zero, sales zero, earnings zero,” McDonnell, or “Mr. Mac” as he would affectionately become known, later recalled. But with the outbreak of World War II, McDonnell Aircraft became a subcontractor, manufacturing small assemblies for many companies and aircraft including the Douglas C-47 Skytrain and Boeing B-29 Superfortress. It was during the war that McDonnell Aircraft developed its first jet, when the company bid on a U.S. Navy contest for a carrier-based fighter. McDonnell’s FH-1 Phantom was the first jet-powered aircraft to be ordered into production by the Navy. It also was the first Navy aircraft to fly 500 mph (800 kilometers per hour), and the first to take off and land from a carrier. It also gave McDonnell Aircraft a financial foundation to withstand the post-WWII drop in defense spending. After the war, with company employment at more than 5,000, McDonnell designed and manufactured the F2H Banshee, F3H Demon and F-101 Voodoo jets. In 1957, the Voodoo set a world speed record of 1,207 mph (1,942 kilometers per hour). McDonnell delivered more than 800 of the fighter bomber. The F-101 was followed by the iconic F-4 Phantom II, which could fly at twice the speed of sound. More than 5,000 were built. In addition to fighter jets, McDonnell Aircraft designed and manufactured glide bombs at its St. Louis facilities. But the company’s crowning achievement came when it was selected by NASA in January 1959 to design and build the Mercury spacecraft that would carry U.S. astronauts into orbit. McDonnell followed with the bigger Gemini capsule that held two astronauts. By 1963, McDonnell was the largest employer in Missouri. James McDonnell, who wanted to diversify into commercial aviation, had talked with Douglas Aircraft in California about a possible merger. The Douglas board, in December 1966, sent out bid invitations to several companies for a possible merger. McDonnell submitted the winning bid, and the McDonnell Douglas merger became official on April 28, 1967. From that merger would come many new commercial, space and military products, including the F-15 and F/A-18 fighters still being built in St. Louis. McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in August 1997. Today, a new generation of Boeing employees, inspired by those who came before them from heritage companies McDonnell Aircraft, Douglas, North American Aviation and others, are working on projects and programs that will continue to shape and lead the future of aviation and aerospace. n henry.t.brownlee-jr@boeing.com james.a.wallace4@boeing.com
Frontiers July 2014 Issue
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