THE DONALD DOUGLAS HERITAGE
To understand the force that Donald Douglas would exert on the world, one must examine his heritage, an ancestral line of strength and independence...
Young Doug could trace his roots through family folklore to William de Dubh Glas but the actual documentation began with James Douglas who was born in 1286. James earned the name “Good Douglas” by the Scots and the non de guerre, “Black Douglas” by the English, after his role in the Scottish-English wars...
DONALD DOUGLAS - THE FIRST AERONAUTICAL ENGINEER
In 1909, Douglas graduated from Trinity Preparatory School in New York City, and deferring to his father’s wishes, entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Like most midshipmen of his day…
DOUGLAS GOES TO WASHINGTON
War clouds were on America’s horizon in 1916, and Douglas reluctantly resigned from Martin. Douglas wanted to serve the war effort and went to Washington as chief civilian aeronautical engineer for …
DOUG’S SECOND TOUR
Douglas’ second tour with Martin saw him faced with a new challenge: Build an American war plane that would dwarf all previous aviation concepts. It had to be better than the Fokker airplanes of Germany, which had nearly destroyed the fledgling French and British flying services……
COMMERCIAL AVIATION OUTLOOK
In his early years as a designer of military planes, Douglas had seen another role for the airplane. Douglas felt commercial aviation had a future, and his Martin Bomber might point to that future. Douglas knew it was adaptable to…
FLYING ON WOOD AND WIRE
Airplanes of the 1920s were fragile combinations of wood or metal tubing, covered with doped fabric and held together with wire and glue. One model carried four passengers and the pilot, all in…..
POSTWAR RECESSION
“When World War I ended, airplane manufacturers knew much more about building stable airplanes. Government funding had gone a long way to advance the state of the art. With the emergency over, the momentum…”
DOUGLAS MOVES TO CALIFORNIA
The field of commercial aviation was wide open for Donald Douglas. He knew he could profit from it, but Douglas would have to be his own boss to pursue his own designs. In the first of many lifetime gambles, he resigned from Martin and….
THE DAVIS-DOUGLAS COMPANY
One day, as Douglas pounded the hot sidewalks of Los Angeles, looking for support, he ran into an old friend. Bill Henry had worked with Douglas at Martin’s Cleveland plant, as Martin’s public relations writer. Now Douglas found out that Henry…
THE DOUGLAS COMPANY
Douglas reformed his company in 1921, calling it the Douglas Company. In 1928 the Douglas Company became the Douglas Aircraft Company, and Douglas served as president until 1957, when he became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Douglas had learned an important lesson from his association with Davis. He would have to establish a track record of performance. Catering to the whim of a playboy was too uncertain. The government was spending serious money on aviation, and Douglas saw a future in government contracts…
DOUGLAS’ TORPEDO PLANES
Douglas knew he had a good airplane in the Cloudster and did not want to abandon…
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