McDonnell Douglas Corporation, former aerospace company that was a major U.S. producer of jet fighters, commercial aircraft, and space vehicles. McDonnell Douglas was formed in the 1967 merger of the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, founded in 1939, and the Douglas Aircraft Company, established in 1921. The latter’s founder, Donald W. Douglas (1892–1981), first became interested in aviation as a youth while watching the Wright Brothers demonstrate their biplane for the Army in 1909. Later, as a civil engineering assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s department of aerodynamics, he helped devise one of the first wind tunnels for the testing of