He developed the P-51 Mustang during World War II, the F-100 jet fighter, the X-15 rocket plane, and oversaw the Apollo program.

[3] Atwood worked for Douglas Aircraft Company in Southern California, and joined North American Aviation in 1934.

[3] Among the aircraft designed and built by North American during World War II: the P-51 Mustang fighter plane, which achieved particularly impressive results in the Eighth Air Force; the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, used by Jimmy Doolittle and 79 airmen in the famous Doolittle Raid; and the T-6 Texan, which almost all American and British Commonwealth airmen of the Second World War flew in training.

Atwood later became president of North American Aviation in 1948 and oversaw the development of some of the most important aircraft produced in the United States.

After World War II, Atwood used North American's resources to make its business indispensable in new high-tech fields such as winning the Apollo program, headed by Harrison Storms..[4] In 1960 he became CEO and in 1962 he became chairman of the board, following the death of Dutch Kindelberger in 1962.

Atwood was elected to the International Air & Space Hall of Fame in 1984 and received the Howard Hughes Memorial Award in 1994.