Part One
“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestaors who… looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space… on the infinite highway of the air,” once said aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright. This romantic view of flight has inspired designers, pilots and travelers for generations. One of the most influential aircraft companies was started by an intensely curious Arkansan, James McDonnell, who grew up dreaming of flight. McDonnell, however, had to overcome a number of setbacks in his business career.
James Smith McDonnell was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1899, four years before the first successful flight of the Wright Brothers. When he was still very young, his father moved the family to Altheimer in Jefferson County to set up a business. Eventually, the family settled in Little Rock. McDonnell developed a steady interest in science at a young age, including the emerging science of aviation. As a child, he experimented with batteries and set up wireless telegraphy equipment (an early form of short-wave radio) throughout the family home. He proved to be an exceptional student and graduated from Little Rock High School in 1917.
McDonnell enrolled at Princeton University, majoring in physics. He decided that he wanted a career designing and building aircraft. McDonnell graduated from Princeton with honors in 1921, and enrolled in the new aeronautical engineering program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The MIT program was designed to train army and navy aviators as the military air services were still in their infancy. After he received his master’s degree in 1923, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps Reserve. His time in the Air Corps included testing new aircraft. He also volunteered to test the army’s first parachutes, an initially terrifying experience but one that saved many lives in the future.
He left the Air Corps Reserves and returned to Arkansas for a short time, hoping to develop his own aircraft company. Success does not often come quickly or easily, as McDonnell’s early efforts showed. Initially unsuccessful, he started working for several different aircraft companies across the country as an engineer before developing his own aircraft company in 1928. J. S. McDonnell and Associates, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, attempted to produce civilian aircraft. Its main product, the “Doodle-Bug,” was a small and versatile craft; but he could not attract much interest. The company soon folded.
He had an immense faith in the future of aviation. McDonnell wrote in a 1935 essay, “I feel that a world of flying people will be a better world.” However, the Great Depression limited his opportunities. By the late 1930s, he looked at the world situation and realized that a war was coming, and airplanes would be required. In 1938, he quit his job and spent the next eight months raising money to build his aircraft company. In July 1939, at the age of 40, he was able to fulfill his dream and founded McDonnell Aircraft Company.
The company was based in St. Louis, Missouri. McDonnell believed that a centralized location worked best for the company as well as the fact that it was far from the coasts, which could be vulnerable to attack. He hired 15 people in the first year. He was widely respected among his employees, who often referred to him as “Mr. Mac.” But the first year was not a success for the company. The company had no sales in 1939.
Eventually, the company started a brisk business selling aircraft parts, and as the defense buildup before World War II accelerated, the company gradually became profitable. During the war, the company received several contracts to produce war materiel and experimental aircraft. McDonnell Aircraft produced early versions of guided missiles. One aircraft, the experimental XP-67 “Moonbat,” a high-altitude interceptor, proved too problematic for the Army Air Force and never went into full production. Nevertheless, the company had more than 5,000 employees by the end of the war.
McDonnell Aircraft would rise to new prominence after World War II. Aircraft began making the move from propellers to jet engines. McDonnell made sure his company was on the forefront of these changes and moving the company into the Space Age.
Dr. Ken Bridges is a professor of history and geography at South Arkansas Community College in El Dorado and a resident historian for the South Arkansas Historical Preservation Society. Bridges can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].