Career
In 1928, McDonnell left Huff Daland and set up J.S. McDonnell & Associates, and with the help of two other engineers, McDonnell set out to design his first aircraft with his company name. This aircraft would then compete in a safe airplane contest sponsored by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics and offered a $100,000 prize for the winning entry. His design was the Doodle Bug. After the failure of the Doodle Bug to win the contest (the Curtiss Tanager won) or any commercial orders due to the Great Depression, he dissolved his firm and worked for the Great Lakes Aircraft Company in 1931 before he was hired as an engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company.
McDonnell resigned from Martin in 1938 and founded McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in 1939. Headquartered in St. Louis, the company quickly grew into the principal supplier of fighter aircraft to the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy, including the F-4 Phantom II fighter and the Mercury and Gemini space capsules.
In 1967, McDonnell Aircraft merged with the Douglas Aircraft Company to creat McDonnell Douglas. Later that year Douglas Aircraft Company's space and missiles division became part of a new subsidiary called McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, located in Huntington Beach, California, producing the Delta series of launch vehicles. The new combined company also developed the F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Hornet fighters.
McDonnell founded the James S. McDonnell Foundation in 1950 to "improve the quality of life", which contributed to the generation of new knowledge through its support of research and scholarship. He served as chairman of the United Nations Association of the United States, and in 1958 his company became the first organization in the world to celebrate United Nations Day as a paid holiday. In 1980 McDonnell was awarded the NAS Award in Aeronautical Engineering from the National Academy of Sciences.
He was succeeded as Chair of MD by his nephew Sanford N. McDonnell in 1980.
Read more about this topic: James Smith Mc Donnell
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