McDonnell Douglas Corporation

McDonnell Douglas is an American aircraft corporation headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. This airline has become one of the largest in the world in the production of military aircraft, as well as in the production of commercial passenger aircraft. 25 years ago, it was one of the largest contractors in space and defense.

According to 1988 data, 70% of the company's sales were represented by government orders. At that time, sales were $ 15,1 billion, net annual income was $ 350 million, and the number of employees was about 121 people.

The McDonnell Douglas Corporation is the third largest aircraft manufacturing company. The corporation's staff consists of more than 63 employees working in various divisions around the world.

In 1996 year McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing under the name Boeing Company, which is now the largest aerospace corporations.

Official site: http://www.boeing.com/

History McDonnell Douglas

Home McDonnell Douglas existence dates back to 1967, when there was a merger of the two companies that produced aviation equipment, "Douglas Aircraft" and "McDonnell Eykraft."

Douglas Aircraft company established back in 1920 of Its founder was an engineer Donald Douglas. This is now released on a huge amount of high-quality light aircraft, in particular the legendary airliner DC-3, appeared on the airways in 1935, he, thanks to the peculiarities of its operation and acceptable fuel consumption, has made cost-effective passenger transportation. Before the Second World War, the world fleet of commercial airliners share DC-3 was about 80%.

In 1953 of commercial flights began to perform the Douglas DC-7 - one of the first machines that could make flights without landing almost on the whole territory of the United States. Thus, it was possible to fly across the country to the extreme west at the eastern point, even moving in the direction of the air flow against the wind.

In the early 1960-x seriously began to develop aircraft manufacturer "Boeing" - the main competitor of "Douglas", which, through its activities, selected profitable orders for aircraft than did his rival loss-making enterprise.

McDonnell Aircraft Corporation - corporation, which was established in 1939, Her founder is an engineer James McDonnell. During the Second World War, the company was one of the key suppliers of aircraft for combat use of the US Army. This is what now been made known examples of such aircraft as fighter jets F2H Banshee, F-101 and F-4 Phantom. McDonnell also been built capsule "Gemini" and "Mercury", which were intended to send the first American astronauts into space in 1960-ies.

When the two companies merged into one, there was a real giant of the aviation industry, which supplied combat aircraft in the military around the world. Within the walls of McDonnell Douglas has been designed and manufactured fighter became the F-15 Eagle - the main combat aircraft the US Air Force.

1970 city - the company presented to the public passenger version DC-10.

The space defense department of the McDonnell-Douglas company employs 11,2 people. Manufacturing facilities are located in California. The division manufactures space technology for the US Department of Defense, NASA and international manufacturers of space orbiting satellites. The McDonnell Douglas laboratories have developed a line of Delta II launch vehicles, the most important elements of the future international space station, components of thermal vision systems. The corporation also became the main developer of the American space station Skylab, which was launched into orbit in 1973.

In 1984, the company bought out the Hughes Helicopters division, which produced the AH-64 Apache combat helicopters. The helicopter division employs about 2800 people and is based in Arizona. AH-64D Longbow Apache helicopters, light MD 500, MD 600 helicopters, twin-turbine prototype helicopters equipped with the NOTAR system were developed here. Commercial helicopters manufactured at McDonnell Douglas accounted for only a quarter of production capacity in the 1980s.

The units involved in the implementation of the program C-17 in Long Beach, California, worked 8400 people. It involved the construction of a new transport variant C-17 Globemaster III, which were the forerunners Globemaster II and Globemaster I.

With the end of the Cold War, the number of orders for military aircraft McDonnell Douglas in substantially decreased and the company have come on hard times. The turnover of the corporation during the period of 1990 1994 years decreased by 25%. So we had to re-equip their production facilities for production of commercial aircraft.

During this period, a number of these machines are as follows:

• three-engine wide-body MD-11, able to transport over long distances up to 410 passengers;

• small MD-80, aircraft near and medium-haul destinations, proceeded to commit commercial passenger traffic in 1980 g .;

• MD-90 - liner medium-haul destinations, which was released in 1995 city

In addition to these, "McDonnell Douglas" in 1995 city started taking orders for the production of a small twin-engine aircraft to service the airlines' medium and short length, after which began to be issued as the Boeing Corporation Boeing-717.

In 1996 control of McDonnell Douglas announced that the company has no funds for extending the work on widebody passenger liner of the next generation. This greatly reduced the ability of the enterprise in the market of commercial airliners with tough competitive structure manufacturers.

A crushing blow to the corporation made the US Department of Defense, which excluded her from the competition for the design of the latest generation fighter for the Air Force. Not seeing bright prospects, the owners of McDonnell Douglas began to negotiate with the company "Boeing". By the end of 1996 was held the largest merger in the history of aviation. Company McDonnell Douglas was acquired by Boeing. The federal government approved the deal in 1997 city

unit McDonnell Douglas

As part of the McDonnell Douglas at various times operated these units:

• McDonnell Douglas Aerospace - Defence special unit to carry out defense orders. Hours - 1939-1996 g .;
• McDonnell Douglas Hughes Helicopters - the unit that produced the helicopters. Opening hours - 1984-1996.

 McDonnell Douglas (Douglas)  - St. Louis, USA. 

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