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51-728: The company was founded as the Douglas Company by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. on July 22, 1921, in Santa Monica, California , following dissolution of the Davis-Douglas Company. An early claim to fame was the first circumnavigation of the world by air in Douglas airplanes in 1924. In 1923, the U.S. Army Air Service was interested in carrying out a mission to circumnavigate the Earth for the first time by aircraft ,

102-649: A great circle route. Hence, in case of an engine failure in a twinjet (like Boeing 777 ), the twin-jet could make emergency landings in fields in Canada , Alaska , eastern Russia , Greenland , Iceland , or the British Isles . The Boeing 777 has also been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for flights between North America and Hawaii , which is the world's longest regular airline route with no diversion airports along

153-518: A podded engine usually mounted beneath, or occasionally above or within, each wing. Most notable examples of such a configuration are the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 . The second has one engine mounted on each side of the rear fuselage, close to its empennage , used by many business jets , although some airliners like the Fokker 70 , Douglas DC-9 and COMAC ARJ21 utilise such a design as well. In

204-532: A heart as a reference to the Clan Douglas . After the success of the DWC, the company adopted a logo that showed three airplanes circling a globe. The logo eventually evolved into an aircraft, a missile, and a globe. This logo was later adopted by McDonnell Douglas in 1967, and became the basis of Boeing 's current logo after their merger in 1997. Douglas Aircraft designed and built a wide variety of aircraft for

255-529: A merger with McDonnell Aircraft Corporation to form McDonnell Douglas on April 28, 1967. Douglas Sr. served as honorary chairman of the McDonnell Douglas board until his death on February 1, 1981, at the age of 88. In keeping with his lifelong love for the sea, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean . McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1997, marking

306-759: A number of aircraft including the C-47 Skytrain, the DB-7 (known as the A-20, Havoc or Boston), the SBD Dauntless dive bomber , and the A-26 Invader . Douglas Aircraft suffered cutbacks at the end of the war, with an end to government aircraft orders and a surplus of aircraft. It was necessary to cut heavily into its workforce, letting go of nearly 100,000 workers. The United States Army Air Forces established 'Project RAND' (Research ANd Development) with

357-612: A program called "World Flight". Donald Douglas proposed a modified Douglas DT to meet the Army's needs. The two-place, open cockpit DT biplane torpedo bomber had previously been produced for the U.S. Navy . The DTs were taken from the assembly lines at the company's manufacturing plants in Rock Island, Illinois , and Dayton, Ohio , to be modified. The modified aircraft known as the Douglas World Cruiser (DWC), also

408-408: A specified distance from an available diversion airport. Overwater flights near diversion airports need not be ETOPS/LROPS-compliant. Since the 1990s, airlines have increasingly turned from four-engine or three-engine airliners to twin-engine airliners to operate transatlantic and transpacific flight routes. On a nonstop flight from America to Asia or Europe, the long-range aircraft usually follows

459-541: A trijet aircraft) and Boeing worked on new widebody twinjet designs that would become the Airbus A330 and Boeing 777 , respectively. The MD-11's long range advantage was brief as it was soon nullified by the Airbus A330-300 and the extended-range Boeing 767-300ER and Boeing 777-200ER. The Airbus A320 twinjet stands out as the most produced jet airliner. The Boeing 777X is the world's largest twinjet, and

510-527: A wholly owned subsidiary of McDonnell Douglas, with Douglas' son, Donald Wills Douglas Jr. , as president. Later, former McDonnell president David S. Lewis became chairman of Douglas Aircraft. His successful turnaround of the division allowed him to become president of McDonnell Douglas in 1969. Meanwhile, Douglas' space and missiles division became part of a new subsidiary called McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company. McDonnell Douglas later merged with its rival Boeing in 1997. Boeing merged Douglas Aircraft into

561-515: Is able to fly well enough to land with a single working engine, making it safer than a single-engine aircraft in the event of failure of an engine. Fuel efficiency of a twinjet is better than that of aircraft with more engines. These considerations have led to the widespread use of aircraft of all types with twin engines, including airliners , fixed-wing military aircraft , and others. There are three common configurations of twinjet aircraft. The first, common on large aircraft such as airliners, has

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612-474: Is not an issue, as one of the engines is more than powerful enough to keep the aircraft aloft (see below). Mostly, ETOPS certification involves maintenance and design requirements ensuring that a failure of one engine cannot make the other one fail also. The engines and related systems need to be independent and (in essence) independently maintained. ETOPS/LROPS is often incorrectly thought to apply only to long overwater flights, but it applies to any flight more than

663-518: The 777X in November 2013, while then-CEO Fabrice Brégier preferred to focus on product improvement rather than all-new concepts for 10 years. It would have a 10-abreast economy like the 777; its 565 m (6,081 sq ft) wing, slightly more than the 747-8, would have an 80 m (262 ft) span, as wide as the A380 , for a 892,900 lb (405 t) MTOW compared to 775,000 lb (352 t) for

714-655: The B-17 Flying Fortress . After the war, Douglas built another Boeing design under license, the B-47 Stratojet turbojet -powered bomber, using a government-owned factory in Marietta, Georgia . World War II was a major boost for Douglas. Douglas ranked fifth among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. The company produced almost 30,000 aircraft from 1942 to 1945, and its workforce swelled to 160,000. The company produced

765-399: The Boeing 777 , Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 have matched or surpassed older quad-jet designs such as the Boeing 747 and Airbus A340 in these aspects, and twinjets have been more successful in terms of sales than quad-jets. In 2012, Airbus studied a 470-seat twinjet competitor for the Boeing 747-8 with lower operating costs expected between 2023 and 2030, revived after Boeing launched

816-799: The Boeing Commercial Airplanes division, and retired the Douglas Aircraft name after 76 years. The last Long Beach -built commercial aircraft, the Boeing 717 (third generation version of the Douglas DC-9), ceased production in May 2006. By 2011, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III was the last aircraft being assembled at the Long Beach facility; the final C-17 was assembled in late 2015. However,

867-588: The Douglas Cloudster . Following an unsuccessful attempt, Davis left the partnership, and Douglas founded the Douglas Aircraft Company . Donald Douglas was not only a very highly regarded engineer and bold entrepreneur, but as World War II approached, he proved to be remarkably prescient. A year and a half before Pearl Harbor, he was already writing that this was the "hour of destiny for American aviation." He expressed confidence that

918-592: The Northrop Corporation . The company retained its military market and expanded into amphibian airplanes in the late 1920s, also moving its facilities to Clover Field at Santa Monica, California . The Santa Monica complex was so large, the mail girls used roller skates to deliver the intracompany mail. By the end of World War II, Douglas had facilities at Santa Monica, El Segundo , Long Beach , and Torrance, California , Tulsa and Midwest City , Oklahoma, and Chicago, Illinois . On November 30, 1928,

969-676: The Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets. In 1967, the company was struggling to expand production to meet demand for DC-8 and DC-9 airliners and the A-4 Skyhawk military attack aircraft. The company was also struggling with quality and cash flow problems and DC-10 development costs, as well as shortages due to the Vietnam War . Under the circumstances, Douglas was very receptive to an offer from McDonnell Aircraft Corporation . On April 28, 1967, after almost four years of merger talks,

1020-645: The "DC" (Douglas Commercial) series of commercial aircraft, including what is often regarded as the most significant transport aircraft ever made: the Douglas DC-3 , which was also produced as a military transport known as the C-47 Skytrain or "Dakota" in British service. Many Douglas aircraft have long service lives. During World War II , Douglas joined the BVD ( Boeing - Vega -Douglas) consortium to produce

1071-753: The 777-200LR variant has the world's second longest aircraft range (behind Airbus A350-900 ULR). Other Boeing twinjets include the 767 , 757 (With the latter having stopped production, but still in commercial service) and 787 . Competitor Airbus produces the A320 family , the A330 , and the A350 . Some modern commercial airplanes still use four engines ( quad-jets ) like the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8 , which are classified as very large aircraft (over 400 seats in mixed-class configurations). Four engines are still used on

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1122-432: The 777X, with a composite structure for an operating empty weight of 467,400 lb (212 t), and a 8,150 nmi (15,090 km) range at Mach 0.85. When flying far from diversionary airports (so called ETOPS/LROPS flights), the aircraft must be able to reach an alternate on the remaining engine within a specified time in case of one engine failure. When aircraft are certified according to ETOPS standards, thrust

1173-480: The Douglas' former logo is preserved on the facility though no longer used by Boeing. Donald Wills Douglas Sr. Donald Wills Douglas Sr. (April 6, 1892 – February 1, 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist and engineer. An aviation pioneer, he designed and built the Douglas Cloudster . Though it failed in its intended purpose—being the first to fly non-stop across the United States—it became

1224-795: The North American leg of the flight). After the success of this flight, the Army Air Service ordered six similar aircraft as observation aircraft. The success of the DWC established the Douglas Aircraft Company among the major aircraft companies of the world and led it to adopt the motto "First Around the World – First the World Around". Douglas initially used a logo that combined two letter Ds with two wings extended outwards, and two Ds placed back to back to form

1275-488: The U.S. Navy — the straight-winged F3D Skyknight in 1948 and then the more "jet age" style F4D Skyray in 1951. Douglas also made commercial jets, producing the Douglas DC-8 in 1958 to compete with the new Boeing 707 . Douglas was a pioneer in related fields, such as ejection seats , air-to-air missiles , surface-to-air missiles , and air-to-surface missiles , launch rockets, bombs, and bomb racks. The company

1326-546: The U.S. military, including the Navy, Army Air Forces, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The company initially built torpedo bombers for the U.S. Navy, but it developed a number of different versions of these aircraft, including reconnaissance planes and airmail aircraft. Within five years, the company was building about 100 aircraft annually. Among the early employees at Douglas were Ed Heinemann , "Dutch" Kindelberger , Carl Cover , and Jack Northrop , who later founded

1377-582: The United States. The United States out-produced its enemies in totalitarian societies. As William S. Knudsen of the National Defense Advisory Commission observed, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible." Donald Douglas summed it up similarly, "Here's proof that free men can out-produce slaves." Douglas Sr. retired in 1957 and

1428-1057: The chief civilian aeronautical engineer of the Aviation Section of the US Army Signal Corps . Soon thereafter he returned to the newly reformed Glenn L. Martin Company , in Cleveland, Ohio , again becoming their chief engineer. Douglas designed the Martin MB-1 bomber. In March 1920, Douglas resigned from his $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 152,000 in 2023) a year job to return to California, where he had met and, in 1916, married Charlotte Marguerite Ogg (1892–1976). They had four sons and one daughter including Donald Jr. He soon started his first aircraft company, Davis-Douglas Company with $ 40,000 financing from partner David Davis. They worked together to attempt to build an aircraft that could fly coast to coast nonstop,

1479-466: The company was reorganized as the Douglas Aircraft Company. In 1934, Douglas produced a commercial twin-engined transport plane , the Douglas DC-2 , followed by the famous DC-3 in 1936. The wide range of aircraft produced by Douglas included airliners , light and medium bombers , fighter aircraft , transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and experimental aircraft. The company is most famous for

1530-613: The end of the Douglas name in the aviation industry. Source : A statue of Douglas, a recreation of his office and the Douglas Aircraft Company boardroom is at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica, California . Douglas is ranked seventh on the aviation magazine Flying 's list of its 51 Heroes of Aviation. Another statue of Douglas and a set of commemorative plaques for him are at the Douglas Park in Long Beach, California ,

1581-475: The first airplane with a payload greater than its own weight. He founded the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1921 (the company later merged with McDonnell Aircraft to form McDonnell Douglas Corporation , which merged with Boeing in 1997). Under his leadership, the company became one of the leaders of the commercial aircraft industry, engaging in a decades-long struggle for supremacy with arch-rival William Boeing and his eponymous enterprise . Douglas gained

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1632-531: The grounds and in the academy's armory. In 1912 he resigned from the academy in order to pursue a career in aeronautical engineering. After being turned down for jobs by Grover Loening and Glenn Curtiss , Douglas enrolled in MIT . He received his Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering —the first person to receive such a degree from MIT—in 1914, completing the four-year course in half

1683-425: The industry could meet the need, and laid out the methods by which it would be transformed from small companies producing aircraft in small batches to making them on a production-line basis. The aircraft industry grew from a distant 41st place among American industries to first place in less than five years. Douglas Aircraft grew from being a small company with 68 employees in 1922 to being the fourth largest business in

1734-530: The introduction of ETOPS rules that allowed twin-engine jets to fly long-distance routes that were previously off-limits to them, Airbus was able to further develop the A300 as a medium- to long-range airliner to increased sales; Boeing launched its widebody twinjet, the Boeing 767 , in response. In the 1980s the Boeing 727 was discontinued, as its central engine bay would require a prohibitively expensive redesign to accommodate quieter high-bypass turbofans, and it

1785-449: The largest cargo aircraft capable of transporting outsize cargo , including strategic airlifters . Twin-jets tend to be more fuel-efficient than trijet (three engine) and quad-jet (four engine) aircraft. As fuel efficiency in airliners is a high priority, many airlines have been increasingly retiring trijet and quad-jet designs in favor of twinjets in the twenty-first century. The trijet designs were phased out first, in particular due to

1836-410: The more complicated design and maintenance issues of the middle engine mounted on the stabilizer. Early twinjets were not permitted by ETOPS restrictions to fly long-haul trans-oceanic routes, as it was thought that they were unsafe in the event of failure of one engine, so quad-jets were used. Quad-jets also had higher carrying capacity than comparable earlier twinjets. However, later twinjets such as

1887-600: The objective of looking into long-range planning of future weapons. In March 1946, Douglas Aircraft Company was granted the contract to research on intercontinental warfare. Project RAND later become the RAND Corporation . Douglas continued to develop new aircraft, including the successful four-engined Douglas DC-6 (1946) and its last propeller-driven commercial aircraft, the Douglas DC-7 (1953). The company had moved into jet propulsion, producing its first for

1938-656: The redevelopment of former site of McDonnell Douglas plant near the Long Beach Airport. A bust of Douglas, and a commemorative plaque for him is located at the Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County, Illinois . Douglas Park in Santa Monica, California is also named after Douglas. Twin-engine A twinjet or twin-engine jet is a jet aircraft powered by two engines . A twinjet

1989-476: The route. The last of these aircraft was delivered to the U.S. Army on March 11, 1924. The four aircraft left Seattle , Washington, on April 6, 1924, flying west, and two of these returned there on 28 September to great acclaim, while one plane had been lost under fog conditions, and another was forced down over the Atlantic and sank (the DWC prototype was then rechristened, and joined the other two in completing

2040-829: The second son of an assistant cashier at the National Park Bank . He attended Trinity Chapel School and was of Scottish descent . After graduation in 1909, he enrolled in the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland . He had been an early aviation enthusiast; at the age of 16 in the fall of 1908, he convinced his mother that he needed to witness the Fort Myer trials of the Wright Flyer . He later built model airplanes, some with rubber-bands and other motors, in his dormitory room at Annapolis and tested them on

2091-694: The third configuration both engines are within the fuselage, side-by-side, used by most fighters since the 1960s. Later fighters using this configuration include the Su-27 'Flanker', the F-15 Eagle , and the F-22 Raptor . The first twinjet to fly was the German fighter prototype Heinkel He 280 , flying in April 1941 with a pair of nacelled Heinkel HeS 8 axial-flow turbojets. The twinjet configuration

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2142-758: The time; he remained there another year as an assistant to Professor Jerome Hunsaker . In 1915 Douglas joined the Connecticut Aircraft Company , participating in the designing of the Navy's first dirigible, the DN-1 . In August 1915, Douglas left for the Glenn Martin Company where he was, at the age of 23, chief engineer, where he designed the Martin S seaplane. Shortly after Glenn Martin merged with Wright Company to form Wright-Martin , Douglas resigned to become, in November 1916,

2193-402: The two companies merged as McDonnell Douglas Corporation . The two companies seemed to be a good match for each other. McDonnell was a major defense contractor, but had almost no civilian business. Douglas' commercial contracts would allow McDonnell to withstand any downturns in procurement. Conversely, McDonnell had enough revenue to help solve Douglas' financial problems; soon after the merger

2244-523: The upper hand, particularly with his revolutionary and highly successful Douglas DC-3 airliner and its equally popular World War II military transport version, the C-47 ; at the start of the war, his airplanes made up 80% of all commercial aircraft in service. However, he lagged behind in the jet age and was overtaken and surpassed by Boeing. He retired in 1957. Douglas was born in Brooklyn , New York,

2295-450: The way. On large passenger jets, the cost of the engines makes up a significant proportion of the plane's final cost. Each engine also requires separate service, paperwork, and certificates. Having two larger engines as opposed to three or four smaller engines will typically significantly reduce both the purchase and maintenance costs of a plane. Regulations governing the required thrust levels for transport aircraft are typically based upon

2346-412: Was announced, McDonnell bought 1.5 million shares of Douglas stock to help Douglas meet "immediate financial requirements". The merged company was based at McDonnell's facility in St. Louis, Missouri . It adopted a modified version of Douglas' logo. Donald Wills Douglas Sr. became honorary chairman of the merged company, a post he would hold until his death in 1981. Douglas Aircraft Company continued as

2397-566: Was ready to enter the new missile business during the 1950s. Douglas moved from producing air-to-air rockets and missiles to entire missile systems under the 1956 Nike missile program and became the main contractor for the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile program and the Thor ballistic missile program. Douglas also earned contracts from NASA, most notably for designing the S-IVB stage of

2448-409: Was replaced by his son, Donald Douglas Jr. as company president. He retained his position as chairman of the board. In 1967, the company was struggling to expand production to meet demand for DC-8 and DC-9 airliners and the A-4 Skyhawk military attack aircraft. Quality and cash flow problems and DC-10 development costs, combined with shortages due to the Vietnam War , led Douglas to agree to

2499-656: Was soon supplanted by twinjets for the narrow-body market; Airbus with the A320 , and Boeing with the 757 and updated "classic" variants of the 737 . During that decade only McDonnell Douglas continued development of the trijet design with an update to the DC-10 , the MD-11 , which initially had a range advantage over its closest medium wide-body competitors which were twinjets, the in-production Boeing 767 and Airbus A300/A310. In contrast to McDonnell Douglas sticking with their existing trijet configuration, Airbus (which never produced

2550-503: Was the first major project for Jack Northrop who designed the fuel system for the series. After the prototype was delivered in November 1923, upon the successful completion of tests on 19 November, the Army commissioned Douglas to build four production series aircraft. Due to the demanding expedition ahead, spare parts, including 15 extra Liberty L-12 engines, 14 extra sets of pontoons, and enough replacement airframe parts for two more aircraft were chosen. These were sent to airports along

2601-484: Was used for short-range narrow-bodied aircraft such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and Boeing 737 . The Airbus A300 was initially not successful when first produced as a short-range widebody, as airlines operating the A300 on short-haul routes had to reduce frequencies to try and fill the high-capacity aircraft, and lost passengers to airlines operating more frequent narrow-body flights. However, after

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