Both men were of Scottish ancestry, were graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and had worked for the aircraft manufacturer Glenn L. Martin Company.

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.

[9] Designed to operate from 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,[10] finally serving in large numbers in a two-seat version as a jet trainer.

[12][13] McDonnell was also developing jets, but being smaller it 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).

[14][15] 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.

[17][18] McDonnell made a number of missiles, including the unusual ADM-20 Quail,[19] as well as experimenting with hypersonic flight, research that enabled it to gain a substantial share of the NASA projects Mercury and Gemini.

Earlier, McDonnell bought 1.5 million shares of Douglas stock to help its partner meet "immediate financial requirements".

[32] As early as 1966 and for decades thereafter, McDonnell Douglas considered building a twin-engined aircraft named the "DC-10 Twin" or DC-X.

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.

Through the Cold War, McDonnell Douglas had introduced and manufactured dozens of successful military aircraft, including the F-15 Eagle in 1974 and[38] the F/A-18 Hornet in 1978,[39] as well as other products such as the Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles.

McDonnell Douglas was hit by the economic shift and forced to contract while diversifying into new areas to protect against more downturns.

The MD-95, a modern regional airliner closely resembling the DC-9-30, was the last McDonnell Douglas designed commercial jet to be produced.

[49][50] On January 13, 1988, McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics won the US Navy Advanced Tactical Aircraft (ATA) contract.

The US$4.83 billion contract 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.

TQMS ended the functional setup where engineers with specific expertise in aerodynamics, structural mechanics, materials, and other technical areas worked on several different aircraft.

[53] 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.

[36][61] Despite briefly leaving 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,[62] and the study quickly sank without a trace.

[75] In 1981, McAuto acquired Bradford Systems and Administrative Services for $11.5 million and began processing medical claims.

[76] In 1983, two principals of Bradford who had to come work at McAuto—Joseph T. Lynaugh[citation needed] and Howard L. Waltman[77]—formed the Sanus Corporation, a health maintenance organization that was a wholly owned subsidiary of McDonnell Douglas.