The Davis-Douglas Cloudster of 1920, Donald W. Douglas's
first design, was followed in 1921 by the DT torpedo-
bomber for the U.S. Navy, the largest single-engined
aircraft in the
World Cruiser
U.S.A. at the time. Four modified DTs, known
as Douglas World Cruisers, made the first round-the-world
flight in 1924, with Army crews. The Douglas Aircraft Company
was formed in 1928, and in 1932 a former Douglas
engineer, Jack Northrop, set up the Northrop Aircraft Company
and produced an all-metal low-wing
DC-3
dive-bomber,
the XBT-1/A-17. Northrop and Douglas merged in 1937
(Douglas with a majority stockholding), and in 1938 it
became Douglas-El Segundo. The dive-bomber design
progressed, via the Douglas TBD Devastator of 1934, to
become the U.S. Navy's first monoplane, and was followed
by the Dauntless SBD. Ultimate Douglas development of
the single-engined
SBD "Dauntless"
piston-engined attack-bomber was the
1945 Skyraider, which served in many roles until 1968,
both in Korea and Vietnam. Last single-engined military
designs by Douglas were the small delta-wing F4D Skyray
jet fighter (first flown January 1951) and highly successful
A4D Skyhawk jet attack-bomber (first flown June 1954 and 2,960 built
DC-4
up to 1979; current programs around the
world keep substantial numbers of Skyhawks operationally
capable with foreign forces).
The first twin-engined Douglas design appeared in
1925; the T2D for the U.S. Navy. The B7 of 1930 was the first of a series for the U.S. Army, and was followed
AD (A-1) Skyraider
by the
B-18 in 1935. The most famous twin, however, was the
DB-7/A-20 Boston (and nightfighter Havoc), which first
saw action in June 1940. A total of 7,385 was built, of
which 3,125 went to Russia. The A-26/B-26 Invader of
1945, developed from the A-20, served in Korea and Vietnam,
and
D-558-1 "Skystreak"
the Boston/Havoc concept was taken into the
jet age by the Skywarrior and Skynight. A version of the
former became the B-66 Destroyer, Douglas's (and the
USAF's) last conventional light-attack bomber.
In 1933, under pressure from United Airlines' Boeing
247, Transcontinental & Western Air turned to Douglas to
provide a competing
C-124 Globemaster II
aircraft. The first DC-1 (Douglas Commercial)
appeared in prototype only, but 131 DC-2s followed
in 1932-1936. A wide-bodied sleeper version, the
DST, led to the DC-3 in 1936, which was to be the most
famous airliner of all time. In 1940 the USAAC ordered it
as the C-47 transport. Douglas
A-3 (A3D) Skywarrior
built 9,255 of the 10,125
produced, and in 1961 1,000 were still in military use,
and 600 civil DC-3s remained in operation in the U.S.A.
in 1974. Douglas, consulting five airlines, developed a
four-engined version, the DC-4, in 1941. The Army commandeered
all civil DC-4s on U.S. entry into the
C-133 Cargomaster
war, and
1,162 military C-54s were built. After the war many
reverted to DC-4 status, to be succeeded by the DC-6 and
DC-7. Douglas temporarily lost its lead in transport when
Boeing produced the Model 707, but then produced the
very effective DC-8 and DC-9 jet.
Military transport design continued with
DC-8
the big C-124
Globemaster in 1950, and C-133 Cargomaster of 1957,
a heavy strategic freighter capable of carrying all the thencurrent
IRBMs or ICBMs. In 1947 Douglas went supersonic
with the jet D-558-1 Skystreak and D-558-2 rocket
Skyrocket, built for NASA. The latter held the world speed
record in 1953 at
DC-9
1,981km/h and achieved
Mach 2.01 at 19,810m in 1953. The later
X-3 research aircraft was intended for flight at up to Mach
3. There was a brief involvement with executive jets with
the PD-808 Vespa-jet, production being transferred from
El Segundo to Rinaldo Piaggio before, in 1967, the company
merged with McDonnell Aircraft to become McDonnell
Douglas.
