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DONALD WILLS DOUGLAS
1 892- 1 981
BY ROBERT L. JOHNSON
DONALD WILLS DOUGLAS aviation pioneer, founder of Douglas
Aircraft Company, died on February 1, 1981, in Palm Springs,
California. His leadership in the aviation/aerospace industry for
more than fifty years contributed greatly to development of the
world's air transport system and to the exploration of space.
Mr. Douglas established the company that carried his name in
1920, and he guided its growth to become one of America's largest
aerospace firms. At the time of his death he was Honorary Chair-
man of the Board of Directors of McDonnell Douglas Corporation,
formed with the merger of Douglas Aircraft and the McDonnell
Company in 1967 .
Born April 6, 1892, in Brooklyn, New York, he was the son of
William E. and Dorothy Douglas. His father was a bank cashier. As
a youth he attended the Trinity Chapel School in New York City,
and entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1909.
His interest in aviation had been sparked when, as a boy of
twelve, he read the first accounts of the Wright brothers' successful
flights at Kitty Hawk. He saw Orville Wright demonstrate an air-
craft for the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1908. By 1911, when the
U.S. Navy based its first three float-equipped aircraft on the Severn
River at Annapolis, young Midshipman Douglas was building and
flying model planes in his spare hours.
In 1912, determined that aviation would be his vocation, he
resigned from the Naval Academy just a year short of graduation to
77
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
78
study aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). He earned a B.S. degree in mechanical engi-
neering (there was not yet an aeronautical degree) in 1914 and
remained at MIT as an Assistant in Aeronautical Engineering. His
assignment was to help build one of this country's first scientific
wind tunnels.
"I think I can truly lay claim to being one of the very first aircraft
engineers for the simple reason that up until that time there was no
engineering," Mr. Douglas said more than fifty years later. "It was
all done by judgment, mostly. If the airplane flew the judgment was
good. If it didn't fly the judgment was bad. "
In 1915 Mr. Douglas became a consultant to the Connecticut
Aircraft Company, and then Chief Engineer for the Glenn L. Mar-
tin Company. After serving a year during World War I as Chief
Civilian Aeronautical Engineer for the U. S. Signal Corps, he
returned to Martin to design the Martin bomber. It was a giant—for
its time twin-engine biplane that did much to expand the concept
~ ... .
Ot military air power.
With these achievements behind him, Mr. Douglas decided to go
into business for himself. He moved his family to California and
opened his enterprise equipped only with visionary ideas, engineer-
ing and business acumen, a desk in the back of a barber shop, and
some 5600 in assets.
His first project, in association with young sportsman David R.
Davis, was an airplane designed to fly coast to coast over the United
States, nonstop. That aircraft, the Cloudster, was the first of many
Douglas engineering triumphs; it became the first airplane to take
off with a useful load exceeding its own weight. Within months the
U.S. Navy ordered torpedo bombers, drawing in part on the Cloud-
s~r design. Douglas Aircraft Company had completed its own take-
off.
Global recognition of Douglas design excellence came early. In
1924 U.S. Army pilots flew specially built Douglas World Cruisers
more than 27,500 miles in the first flight around the world. The feat
demonstrated that air travel was, in fact, limitless—and adorned the
Douglas slogan, "First around the world."
The Douglas reputation for outstanding military aircraft, mail
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DONALD WILLS DOUGLAS
79
planes, and flying boats grew as he assembled a design and produc-
tion team that included many who gained fame in their own right;
among them were John K. Northrop, James "Dutch" Kin-
delberger, Clifford Garrett, Ted Conant, Harry Wetzel, Arthur E.
Raymond, and Thomas V. tones.
In 1932 Mr. Douglas responded to a request from Transcontinen-
tal and Western Air for bids on design and production of a three-
engine transport able to carry twelve passengers at speeds up to 145
miles per hour. Boldly he offered a twin-engine fourteen-passenger
craft with a speed of 180 miles per hour. He won the contract, and
the Douglas Commercial (DC) family of airliners was born.
The DC-1 prototype flew in July 1933. The improved DC-2
models delivered for airline service reduced transcontinental travel
time to less than sixteen hours, and won for Douglas the 1935 Collier
Trophy. The DC-3 story is a legend well known, with many hun-
dreds still in service around the world. The four-engine DC-4 made
transoceanic flight by land-based transports routine. The DC-6,
DC-7, and jet-powered DC-8 were airliners that built the modern
commercial air transport system. And today's DC-9 and DC-10
jetliners continue the tradition of design excellence, reliability, and
technological leadership established by Donald Douglas.
Mr. Douglas threw himself and his company into the World
War II aviation effort with typical vigor. His innovative B-19, laid
down in 1937, was by far the largest land-based aircraft of the era. It
provided knowledge that guided design of all the wartime heavy
strategic bombers and expanded the concept of military air power.
Six Douglas plants in the West and Midwest delivered nearly 30,000
planes transports, bombers, and carrier-based attack aircraft and
Mr. Douglas presided over the War Production Council to coordi-
nate efforts with other aircraft manufacturers.
After the war Mr. Douglas continued to press the advance of
technology with improved commercial models, giant military trans-
ports, and jet- and rocket-powered research craft that explored
supersonic flight.
He was a leader in developing guided missiles and, later, space
vehicles. The Douglas series of Nike antiaircraft missiles provided
the foundation for what evolved into the Nation's present ballistic
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
missile defense technology program. The Thor intermediate-range
ballistic missile of the 1950s became today's Delta space launch
vehicle. The Douglas-designed S-IVB upper stage for the Saturn
lunar launch vehicle became the Skylab, the world's first manned
. . .
Or siting space station.
Donald Douglas's life coincided with the coming of the aviation—
and now aerospace era. He must be credited with much of that
epic development. His eminence as a creative engineer and head of a
major industrial organization was recognized by countless honors
and awards, including the Collier Trophy, the Daniel Guggenheim
Medal, the Elmer A. Sperry Award, the French Legion of Honor,
the Franklin Medal for creative engineering in aeronautical science,
and the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy. He was elected to the
National Academy of Engineering in 1967.
Donald Wills Douglas, indeed "one of the very first aircraft engi-
neers," earned a lasting place in history as he helped to make it. His
friends and colleagues knew him as a peerless engineer and entrepre-
neur who prized his reputation for integrity above all else. They
knew him as a sportsman who loved his dogs and his sailing and his
friendships with the same intensity that he gave to his professional
life. And they will remember him, always, as simply "Doug," with
gratitude for having known him.
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