DECEMBER 2015–JANUARY 2016 53 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Wings that changed the world Douglas left enduring legacy of airplane design and production BY MICHAEL LOMBARDI When the last C-17 rolled off the assembly line in Long Beach, Calif., in August, it was not just the end to a longrunning and successful airplane program; it also was the final verse of the epic saga of Donald Douglas and the production of aircraft with roots in his company. In 1920, a young Douglas had already attended the U.S. Naval Academy, completed a four-year engineering degree at MIT in two years, served as the chief civilian engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the First World War, and designed the United States’ first bomber, the MB-1. He was 28 years old and determined to build his own airplane company. Douglas started this company, Douglas Aircraft, in the back of a barber shop on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. There he designed his first airplane, a commercial transport called the Cloudster. The Cloudster first flew in February 1921 and gained fame for being the first transport to lift a load equal to its empty weight. Although not a financial success, it served as a foundation for a follow-on and very successful U.S. Navy torpedo bomber—the DT-1. In all, 93 DT-1s were built, but the DT-1’s greatest claim to fame was being chosen by the U.S. Army for the historic first around-the-world flight. In 1924, two of the planes, called Douglas World Cruisers, completed the epic flight—an event that was commemorated in a logo that has evolved over the years and contnues today as the symbol in the Boeing trademark. In those early years, Douglas had success building mail planes, Army observation planes and amphibians, including the Dolphin that was so superior William Boeing bought one for his personal airplane. Following those was the most famous Douglas airplane and one of the most famous airplanes of all time—the DC-3. In 1933, Boeing had introduced the Model 247, the first modern airliner. Overnight, almost all other commercial planes were obsolete. To face this challenge, Douglas committed to build a better plane, and from the genius of Arthur Raymond and Dutch Kindelberger, who later headed his own company, North American Aviation, came the design for the DC-1. It led to the DC-3, the plane that launched an aviation dynasty and near monopoly of the commercial airliner market. By 1939, 93 percent of the air travel in the United States was on a Douglas airplane. In 1940, with Europe at war, France and Britain came to Douglas Aircraft with orders for the DB-7, or A-20, light bomber, and with that the company began an unprecedented period of mass production in support of the war effort. Commercial production ended, DC-3s Photos: (Far left, clockwise from top) The famous “Fly DC Jets” over the MD-80/90 final assembly line at the Douglas plant in Long Beach, Calif. BOEING ARCHIVES A DC-3 purchased by Texaco gets fueled on the ramp at the Douglas plant in Santa Monica. BOEING Launch of a Douglas Thor booster topped by an Agena upper stage—the Thor began as the United States’ first land-based ballistic missile and evolved into the Delta rocket family still in use today; Family Day at the Douglas Long Beach plant in July 1944. (Below) Douglas A-4 Skyhawks of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels demonstration team fly in formation with a U.S. Air Force KC-10 Extender, a military derivative of the Douglas DC-10. BOEING ARCHIVES
Frontiers December 2015 - January 2016 Issue
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