56-754: Consairway (also Consairway Division or Consolidated Airway ) was an American civilian wartime airline created in late 1941 as a subsidiary of the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation . The airline worked under contract to the United States Air Corps Ferrying Command , primarily for supplying the South West Pacific theatre of World War II . Its very first flights, starting 23 April 1942, however, were Lend-Lease deliveries of American-built aircraft to Great Britain and
112-528: A fully laden aircraft capable of flying from Singapore to Paris , against strong headwinds during mid-winter ; the MD-11 did not have sufficient range for this at the time. Due to the less-than-expected performance figures, Singapore Airlines canceled its order for 20 MD-11s on August 2, 1991, and ordered 20 Airbus A340-300s instead. In 1992, McDonnell Douglas unveiled a study of a double deck jumbo-sized aircraft designated MD-12 . Despite briefly leaving
168-620: A luxury airliner for the United States Army Air Forces . In 1992, the civilian employees who had worked overseas for Consairway between 14 December 1941, and 14 August 1945, received status and benefits as military veterans under the Veterans Benefits Administration . This article relating to a United States airline is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Convair Convair , previously Consolidated Vultee ,
224-666: A partnership with St. Louis pharmacy chain Medicare-Glaser Corp. to form Express Scripts to provide drugs for the Sanus HMO. McDonnell Douglas acquired Microdata Corporation in 1983. The division was spun out as a separate company, McDonnell Douglas Information Systems in 1993. The corporation also produced the Sovereign (later M7000) series of systems in the UK, which used the Sovereign operating system developed in
280-542: A pitch for such a jet with Boeing wings, but nothing came of any of the proposals. In 1999, Boeing completed the spin off of the civilian line of helicopters to form MD Helicopters , which was formerly part of McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems. Starting August 17, 2006, Boeing closed down the Long Beach factory as orders for the C-17 ceased. Some of the company's lasting legacies are non-aviation related. They are
336-603: A series of experimental high-speed jet aircraft in the Skyrocket family, with the Skyrocket DB-II being the first aircraft to travel at twice the speed of sound in 1953. Both companies were eager to enter the new missile business, Douglas moving from producing air-to-air rockets and missiles to entire missile systems under the 1956 Nike program and becoming the main contractor of the Skybolt ALBM program and
392-531: A very reliable booster for launching of satellites and continued to evolve, remaining in use into the 21st century, when combined with the Centaur upper stage to form the Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle for launching geosynchronous communication satellites and space probes . The Centaur rocket was also designed, developed, and produced by Convair, and it was the first widely used outer space rocket to use
448-733: Is widely used today to calculate trigonometric functions in calculators , field-programmable gate arrays , and other small electronic systems. General Dynamics announced the sale of the Missile Systems Division segment of Convair to Hughes Aircraft Company in May 1992 and the Space Systems Division segment to Martin Marietta in 1994. In July 1994, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas mutually agreed to terminate Convair's contract to provide fuselages for
504-554: The Advanced Tactical Fighter and Joint Strike Fighter , severely hurt McDonnell Douglas. McDonnell Douglas built only a small wind tunnel test model. At its peak in mid-1990, McDonnell Douglas employed 132,500 people, but dropped to about 87,400 by the end of 1992. In 1991, the MD-11 was not quite a success; ongoing tests of the MD-11 revealed a significant shortfall in the aircraft's performance. An important prospective carrier, Singapore Airlines , required
560-625: The Airbus A300 , but it never progressed to a prototype. Such an aircraft might have given McDonnell Douglas an early lead in the huge twinjet market that developed in the 1970s, as well as commonality with many of the DC-10's systems. In 1977, the next generation of DC-9 variants, dubbed the "Super 80" (later renamed the MD-80 ) series, was launched. In 1977, the KC-10 Extender became
616-603: The Convair B-36 Peacemaker and Convair B-58 Hustler strategic bombers, and the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and Convair F-106 Delta Dart interceptors. It also manufactured the first Atlas rockets, including the rockets that were used for the crewed orbital flights of Project Mercury . The company's subsequent Atlas-Centaur design continued this success and derivatives of the design remain in use as of 2023. The company also entered
SECTION 10
#1732782401184672-708: The DC-10 and the MD-80 airliners, the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter , and the F/A-18 Hornet multirole fighter. The corporation's headquarters were at St. Louis Lambert International Airport , near St. Louis , Missouri . The company was formed from the firms of James Smith McDonnell and Donald Wills Douglas in 1967. Both men were of Scottish ancestry, were graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and had worked for
728-554: The Mirage fighter planes . One of Convair's most famous products was the ten-engined Convair B-36 strategic bomber, burning four turbojets and turning six pusher propellers driven by Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial piston engines. The Convair B-36 was the largest landbased piston engined bomber in the world. The Atlas missile , the F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart delta-winged interceptors, and
784-581: The Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 space probes, the first two to be launched on trajectories that carried them out of the Solar System . In addition to aircraft, missiles, and space vehicles, Convair developed the large Charactron vacuum tubes, a form of cathode-ray tube (CRT) computer display with a shaped mask to form characters, and to give an example of a minor product, the CORDIC algorithms, which
840-548: The Thor ballistic missile program. McDonnell made a number of missiles, including the unusual ADM-20 Quail , as well as experimenting with hypersonic flight, research that enabled it to gain a substantial share of the NASA projects Mercury and Gemini . Douglas also gained contracts from NASA, notably for part of the enormous Saturn V rocket. The two companies were now major employers, but both were having problems. McDonnell
896-529: The U.S. Air Force using V-2 technology motors in response to the Soviet missile threat. It was first launched in 1957 but its use as an ICBM was soon replaced in 1962 by the room-temperature liquid-fueled Titan II missile , and later by the solid-fueled Minuteman missile . The Atlas rocket transitioned into a civilian launch vehicle and was used for the first orbital crewed U.S. space flights during Project Mercury in 1962 and 1963. The Atlas rocket became
952-457: The jet airliner business with its Convair 880 and Convair 990 designs. These were smaller than contemporary aircraft like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 , but somewhat faster than both. This combination of features failed to find a profitable niche and the company exited the airliner design business. However, the manufacturing capability built up for these projects proved very profitable and
1008-645: The 1970s was a serious shock to the commercial aviation industry. McDonnell Douglas was hit by the economic shift and forced to contract while diversifying into new areas to protect against more downturns. In 1984, McDonnell Douglas expanded into helicopters by purchasing Hughes Helicopters from the Summa Corporation for $ 470 million. Hughes Helicopters was made a subsidiary initially and renamed McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems in August 1984. McDonnell Douglas Helicopters's most successful product
1064-608: The 300-seat MD-11 airliner. Manufacturing responsibility was to be transferred to McDonnell Douglas, which said it would not preserve the operation in San Diego. General Dynamics had tried for two years to sell the Aircraft structures segment of Convair unit, but the effort ultimately failed. The termination of the contract meant the end of the Convair Division and of General Dynamics' presence in San Diego, as well as
1120-548: The 747, but ultimately the double deck concept would not see the light of day until the Airbus A380 in the 2000s. Following Boeing's 1996 acquisition of Rockwell 's North American division, McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in August 1997 in a US$ 13 billion stock swap , with Boeing as the surviving company. Boeing introduced a new corporate identity based on the McDonnell Douglas logo, which showed
1176-578: The B-24s, and its associated engineering locations and laboratories — all previously used to make hundreds of Consolidated B-24s, General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark fighter-bombers and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons , along with dozens of smaller projects — were sold, along with all intellectual property and the legal rights to the products designed and built within, to the Lockheed Corporation . In 1996, General Dynamics deactivated all of
SECTION 20
#17327824011841232-799: The Convair company was bought by the General Dynamics Corporation , a conglomerate of military and high-technology companies, and it became officially the Convair Division within General Dynamics. After the beginning of the Jet Age of military fighters and bombers, Convair was a pioneer of the delta-winged aircraft design, along with the French Dassault aircraft company, which designed and built
1288-616: The McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC). Earlier, McDonnell bought 1.5 million shares of Douglas stock to help its partner meet "immediate financial requirements". The two companies seemed to be a good fit for each other. McDonnell's military contracts provided an instant solution for Douglas' cash flow problems, while the revenue from Douglas' civil contracts would be more than enough for McDonnell to withstand peacetime declines in procurement. McDonnell Douglas retained McDonnell Aircraft's headquarters location at what
1344-610: The Netherlands. The airline performed hundreds of missions delivering munitions and personnel; and supporting USO activities from 1942 to 1945, including transporting passengers such as Bob Hope , Joe E. Brown and Eleanor Roosevelt . Consairway originally operated out of San Diego but then moved to Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base in 1943. The airline operated land-based aircraft, as opposed to similar airlines operating flying boats, out of Hickam Field , Guam , Guadalcanal , Australia and New Guinea . During its peak in 1943,
1400-712: The aircraft manufacturer Glenn L. Martin Company . Douglas had been chief engineer at Martin before leaving to establish Davis-Douglas Company in early 1920 in Los Angeles. The following year, he bought out his backer and renamed the firm the Douglas Aircraft Company . McDonnell founded J.S. McDonnell & Associates in Milwaukee , Wisconsin, in 1926 to produce a personal aircraft for family use. The economic depression from 1929 ruined his ideas and
1456-537: The airline had 800 employees and operated twice-weekly flights to the South West Pacific. Consairway was reported to have flown more than 101 million ton-miles of cargo and 299 million passenger miles by its closing in 1945. The airline flew the LB-30 Liberator II, Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber, as well as a converted XB-24B that was used as
1512-646: The all- cryogenic fuel-oxidizer combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen . The use of this liquid hydrogen – liquid oxygen combination in the Centaur was an important direct precursor to the use of the same fuel-oxidizer combination in the Saturn S-II second stage and the Saturn S-IVB third stage of the gigantic Saturn V Moon rocket of the Apollo program . The S-IVB had earlier also been used as
1568-572: The city's long aircraft-building tradition. The defense contractor once employed 18,000 people there, but after selling its divisions, that number is now zero. General Dynamics closed its complex in Kearny Mesa , demolishing the facility between 1994 and 1996. Homes and offices now occupy the site. The Lindbergh Field plant that produced B-24s during World War II was also demolished and the consolidated rental car facility now occupies this space. The Fort Worth, Texas factory, constructed to build
1624-612: The collapse of the A-12 program led to the layoff of 5,600 employees. The advanced tactical aircraft role vacated by the A-12 debacle would be filled by another McDonnell Douglas program, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet . However the purchasing of aircraft was curtailed as the Cold War came to an abrupt end in the 1990s. This curtailment in military procurements combined with the loss of the contracts for two major projects,
1680-445: The company became a major subcontractor for airliner fuselages. The jets made their first flights on January 27, 1959 and January 24, 1961 respectively. 65 and 37 examples of the Convair 880 and Convair 990 were produced respectively. In 1994, most of the company's divisions were sold by General Dynamics to McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed , with the remaining components deactivated in 1996. Consolidated produced important aircraft in
1736-524: The company collapsed. He worked at three companies, joining Glenn Martin Company in 1933. He left Martin in 1938 to try again with his own firm, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation , this time based at Lambert Field , outside St. Louis, Missouri . Douglas Aircraft profited during World War II . The company produced about 10,000 C-47s, a military variant of the Douglas DC-3 , from 1942 to 1945. The workforce swelled to 160,000. Both companies suffered at
Consairway - Misplaced Pages Continue
1792-440: The company's St. Louis headquarters where he continued sales efforts on the DC-10 and managed the company as a whole as president and chief operating officer through 1971. The DC-10 began production in 1968 with the first deliveries in 1971. As early as 1966 and for decades thereafter, McDonnell Douglas considered building a twin-engined aircraft named the "DC-10 Twin" or DC-X. This would have been an early twinjet similar to
1848-527: The computer systems and companies developed in the company's subsidiary McDonnell Automation Company (McAuto) which was created in the 1950s initially used for numerical control for production starting in 1958 and computer-aided design (CAD) starting in 1959. Its CAD program MicroGDS remains in use with the latest official version 11.3 issued in June 2013. By the 1970s, McAuto had 3,500 employees and $ 170 million worth of computer equipment. This made it one of
1904-479: The contract's termination: the government claimed that the contractors had defaulted on the contract and were not entitled to the final progress payments, while McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics believed that the contract was terminated out of convenience, and thus the money was owed. The case was contested through litigation until a settlement was reached in January 2014. The chaos and financial stress created by
1960-632: The decks of the World War II Essex -class aircraft carriers , the Skyhawk was small, reliable, and tough. Variants of it continued in use in the Navy for almost 50 years, finally serving in large numbers in a two-seat version as a jet trainer. Douglas also made commercial jets, producing the DC-8 in 1958 to compete with the Boeing 707 . McDonnell was also developing jets, but being smaller it
2016-494: The delta-winged B-58 Hustler supersonic intercontinental nuclear bomber were all Convair products. For a period of time in the 1960s, Convair manufactured its own line of jet commercial airliners, the Convair 880 and Convair 990 Coronado , but this did not turn out to be profitable. However, Convair found that it was profitable to be an aviation subcontractor and manufacture large subsections of airliners — such as fuselages — for
2072-628: The early years of World War II , especially the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber and the PBY Catalina seaplane for the U.S. armed forces and their allies. Approximately 18,500 B-24s were produced by Consolidated and a number of major contractors across a number of versions; it holds records as the world's most-produced bomber, heavy bomber, multi-engine aircraft, and American military aircraft in history. The Catalina remained in production through May 1945, and more than 4,000 were built. What
2128-635: The end of the war, facing an end of government orders and a surplus of aircraft. Douglas continued to develop new aircraft, including the DC-6 in 1946 and the DC-7 in 1953. The company moved into jet propulsion, producing the F3D Skyknight in 1948 and then the more "jet age" F4D Skyray in 1951. In 1955, Douglas introduced the U.S. Navy's first attack jet, the A4D Skyhawk . Designed to operate from
2184-425: The functional setup where engineers with specific expertise in aerodynamics, structural mechanics, materials, and other technical areas worked on several different aircraft. This was replaced by a product-oriented system where they focus on one specific airplane. As part of reorganization, 5,000 managerial and supervisory positions were eliminated at Douglas. The former managers could apply for 2,800 newly created posts;
2240-423: The globe being encircled in tribute to the first aerial circumnavigation which was accomplished in 1924 by Douglas aircraft. It was designed by graphic designer Rick Eiber, who had been the corporate identity consultant for Boeing over ten years. Between 1993 and just after the merger in 1997, McDonnell Douglas performed studies on the feasibility of a twin-engine jet using MD-11 components, and ultimately made
2296-474: The larger airliner companies, McDonnell Douglas , Boeing , and Lockheed . In the 1950s, Convair shifted money and effort to its missile and rocket projects, producing the Terrier missile ship-launched surface-to-air system for the U.S. Navy during the 1960s and 1970s. Convair's Atlas rocket , originally proposed in 1945 with a unique pressurized cylinder airframe, was revived in the 1950s as an ICBM for
Consairway - Misplaced Pages Continue
2352-561: The largest computer processors in the world during this era. In 1981, McAuto acquired Bradford Systems and Administrative Services for $ 11.5 million and began processing medical claims. In 1983, two principals of Bradford who had to come work at McAuto—Joseph T. Lynaugh and Howard L. Waltman —formed the Sanus Corporation, a health maintenance organization that was a wholly owned subsidiary of McDonnell Douglas. In 1986, after McDonnell Douglas reduced its control, Sanus announced
2408-491: The market, the study was perceived as merely a public relations exercise to disguise the fact that MDC was struggling under intense pressure from Boeing and Airbus . It was clear to most in the industry that MDC had neither the resources nor the money to develop such a large aircraft, and the study quickly sank without a trace. A similar double deck concept was used in Boeing's later Ultra-Large Aircraft study intended to replace
2464-637: The remaining 2,200 would lose their managerial responsibilities. The reorganization reportedly led to widespread loss of morale at the company and TQMS was nicknamed "Time to Quit and Move to Seattle" by employees referring to the competitor Boeing headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Technical issues, development cost overruns, growing unit costs, and delays led to the termination of the A-12 Avenger II program on January 13, 1991, by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney . Years of litigation would proceed over
2520-428: The remaining legal entities of the Convair Division. McDonnell Douglas Corporation McDonnell Douglas Corporation was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor , formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produced well-known commercial and military aircraft, such as
2576-540: The second McDonnell Douglas transport aircraft to be purchased by the U.S. Air Force, after the C-9 Nightingale/Skytrain II . Through the Cold War , McDonnell Douglas had introduced and manufactured dozens of successful military aircraft, including the F-15 Eagle in 1974 and the F/A-18 Hornet in 1978, as well as other products such as the Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles . The oil crisis of
2632-799: The second stage of the smaller Saturn IB rocket, such as the one used to launch Apollo 7 . The Centaur upper stage was first designed and developed for launching the Surveyor lunar landers, beginning in 1966, to augment the delta-V of the Atlas rockets and give them enough payload capability to deliver the required mass of the Surveyors to the Moon . More than 100 Convair-produced Atlas-Centaur rockets (including those with their successor designations) were used to successfully launch over 100 satellites, and among their many other outer-space missions, they launched
2688-484: The time of the merger, Douglas Aircraft was estimated to be less than a year from bankruptcy. Flush with orders, the DC-8 and DC-9 aircraft were 9 to 18 months behind schedule, incurring stiff penalties from the airlines. Lewis was active in DC-10 sales in an intense competition with Lockheed's L-1011 , a rival tri-jet aircraft. In two years, Lewis had the operation back on track and in positive cash flow. He returned to
2744-661: Was a stretched version of the MD-80, powered by International Aero Engines V2500 turbofans, the largest rear-mounted engines ever used on a commercial jet. The MD-95 , a modern regional airliner closely resembling the DC-9-30, was the last McDonnell Douglas designed commercial jet to be produced. On January 13, 1988, McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics won the US Navy Advanced Tactical Aircraft (ATA) contract. The US$ 4.83 billion contract
2800-399: Was an American aircraft-manufacturing company that later expanded into rockets and spacecraft . The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft . In 1953, it was purchased by General Dynamics , and operated as their Convair Division for most of its corporate history. Convair is best known for its military aircraft; it produced aircraft such as
2856-406: Was prepared to be more radical, building on its successful FH-1 Phantom to become a major supplier to the Navy with the F2H Banshee and F3H Demon ; and producing the F-101 Voodoo for the United States Air Force (USAF). The Korean War -era Banshee and later the F-4 Phantom II produced during the Vietnam War helped push McDonnell into a major military fighter supply role. Douglas created
SECTION 50
#17327824011842912-437: Was primarily a defense contractor, without any significant civilian business. It frequently suffered lean times during downturns in military procurement. Meanwhile, Douglas was strained by the cost of the DC-8 and DC-9 . The two companies began to sound each other out about a merger in 1963. Douglas offered bid invitations from December 1966 and accepted that of McDonnell. The two firms were officially merged on April 28, 1967, as
2968-618: Was soon called "Convair" (first unofficially, and then officially), was created in 1943 by the merger of the Consolidated Aircraft Company and the Vultee Aircraft Company. This merger produced a large airplane company , ranked fourth among United States corporations by value of wartime production contracts, higher than the giants Douglas Aircraft , Boeing , and Lockheed . Convair always had most of its research, design, and manufacturing operations in San Diego County in Southern California , though surrounding counties participated as well, mostly as contractors to Convair. In March 1953, all of
3024-441: Was the Hughes-designed AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. In 1986, the MD-11 was introduced, an improved and upgraded version of the DC-10. The MD-11 was the most advanced trijet aircraft to be developed. Since 1990 it sold 200 units, but was discontinued in 2001 after the merger with Boeing as it competed with the Boeing 777 . The final commercial aircraft design to be produced by McDonnell Douglas came in 1988. The MD-90
3080-431: Was then known as Lambert–St. Louis International Airport , in Berkeley, Missouri , near St. Louis . James McDonnell became executive chairman and CEO of the merged company, with Donald Douglas Sr. as honorary chairman. In 1967, with the merger of McDonnell and Douglas Aircraft, David S. Lewis , then president of McDonnell Aircraft, was named chairman of what was called the Long Beach, Douglas Aircraft Division. At
3136-402: Was to develop the A-12 Avenger II , a stealth, carrier-based, long-range flying wing attack aircraft that would replace the A-6 Intruder . In January 1989, Robert Hood, Jr was appointed president to lead the Douglas Aircraft Division, replacing retiring President Jim Worsham. McDonnell Douglas then introduced a major reorganization called the Total Quality Management System (TQMS). TQMS ended
#183816