Donald Wills Douglas

Donald Wills Douglas (born April 6, 1892 in Brooklyn , New York , † February 1, 1981 in Palm Springs , California ) was an American aircraft manufacturer . His company, the Douglas Aircraft Company , which existed from 1921 to 1967 , was one of the most successful aircraft manufacturers of all time. His most famous designs were the DC series, all of which proved to be very tough and durable. The Douglas DC-3 / C-47, one of the most-built aircraft of all time, deserves special mention .

The early years

Donald Wills Douglas was born in New York in 1892, the second son of a bank clerk. During his school career, he aspired to be accepted into the US Naval Academy in Annapolis . In 1909, just before entering the academy, he saw Orville Wright attempting flights in Fort Myer , Virginia . Since then he has been enthusiastic about aviation. In 1912 Douglas graduated from the US Naval Academy and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he graduated in 1914. In 1915 he became a consultant for the Connecticut Aircraft Company . Shortly thereafter, he moved to Los Angeles as an engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company . After a short time in Ohio , Douglas moved to California again in 1920. Douglas's net worth at this point was $ 600.

The Davis-Douglas Company

Douglas founded the Davis-Douglas Company with millionaire David R. Davis in the back room of a hair salon in Santa Monica in 1920 . Davis provided the capital of US $ 40,000, while the know-how should come from Douglas. Their first design was the Davis-Douglas Cloudster mail plane . Although the popularity and commercial success of this aircraft type was limited, the Cloudster can claim a firm place in the annals of aviation: It was the first aircraft that could transport more payload than it weighed. The young company received an order for three bombers developed from the Cloudster in April 1921, but Davis was not interested in this project and left the company.

The Douglas Aircraft Company

Donald Douglas looked around for new investors and found them in some Californian businessmen, so that in July 1921 the Douglas Company was founded from the rest of the Davis-Douglas Company. In 1924 Donald Wills Douglas made three machines to orbit the earth for the first time. The circumnavigation took five and a half months and the machines were named World Cruisers . In 1928 the company was renamed the Douglas Aircraft Company.

After the accident of a Fokker F-10 of the TWA , the laws on the maintenance of wooden aircraft were tightened in the USA so that economic traffic was hardly possible. Boeing then presented the design of a new all-metal aircraft, which was ordered by United Airlines . Due to a contract that guaranteed United Airlines a monopoly for almost two years for the new Boeing 247 , the other airlines were forced to act. TWA wrote to several manufacturers to send in designs for a competing product. Douglas, until then without any experience with passenger aircraft, accepted the challenge and presented the Douglas Commercial 1, in short: Douglas DC-1 . The DC-1 was considered revolutionary and was more than equal to the Boeing 247. The twin-engine machine (TWA originally requested a three-engine aircraft) convinced TWA and so the airline ordered the aircraft off the drawing board. The aircraft went into series production as the slightly enlarged Douglas DC-2 . However, it was the further development of the DC-3 from 1935 that finally lifted Douglas into the Olympus of the great manufacturers. His company would dominate the commercial aircraft market until the 1950s. In 1939 Douglas and his team designed a large transport aircraft, but the airlines no longer needed it with the outbreak of World War II . From this aircraft, the scaled-down DC-4 "Skymaster" and later the DC-6 and DC-7 , which were among the last large piston-engine aircraft, emerged.

With the jet age, the tide turned for Douglas. Boeing's new jet, the 1954 Dash 80 , attracted interest from airlines around the world. Douglas was able to present a counterproduct with a little delay in 1958, but lost market leadership to Boeing. Nevertheless, the old Donald Douglas achieved a new milestone in the history of civil aviation with the Douglas DC-8 : It was the first airliner to break the sound barrier - nine years before the Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144 . In the 1960s, Douglas desperately wanted to regain market leadership. His company invested huge sums of money in further developments of the DC-8 and in a new short-haul jet, the DC-9 (1965). A new wide-body aircraft (the DC-10 later emerged from this project ) was also planned. However, Douglas slipped into ruin and so his company was bought by the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in 1967 . Douglas remained an honorary board member of the new company: McDonnell Douglas .

Donald Douglas the man

Donald Wills Douglas saw himself as a visionary. His dream was to bring the countries of the world closer through aviation. Although Douglas designed a number of postal and military aircraft, his heart was attached to his DC series, which allowed him to make a small contribution to his dream. The manufacturer was considered a down-to-earth family man and dog lover throughout his life. Douglas died in Palm Springs, California at the age of 88 . Its ashes were scattered across the Pacific .

literature

• Wilbur H. Morrison: Donald Douglas. A Heart With Wings. Iowa State University Press, Ames IA 1991, ISBN 0-8138-1834-6 .
• Arthur Pearcy: Douglas Propliners. DC-1 - DC-7. Airlife Publishing, Shrewsbury 1995, ISBN 1-85310-261-X .
• Donald W. Douglas , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 23/1981 of May 25, 1981, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)