Douglas Aircraft Company
14 types · 0 airframes
Pre-1950 Narrative
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Aircraft Types
Douglas A-1 Skyraider
The Douglas A-1 Skyraider is a single-seat, piston-engined attack aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, first flown on 18 March 1945 as the XBT2D-1 and produced as the AD until the 1962 redesignation made it the A-1. Designed as a combined dive-bomber and torpedo-bomber, a successor to types such as the SBD Dauntless, it arrived too late for the Second World War but became a mainstay of the Korean and Vietnam wars, flying close support, interdiction and rescue-escort missions for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force and for several foreign air arms. Douglas built 3,180 in twelve years of production; Skyraider pilots were twice credited with downing MiG-17 jets over Vietnam, and survivors now fly as warbirds and stand in museums.
Douglas A-20 Havoc
The Douglas A-20 Havoc is the American twin-engine attack bomber that France ordered before the U.S. Army did. Designed by Douglas as the Model 7B and first flown on 26 October 1938, it was ordered by France in February 1939 as the DB-7, while the Army Air Corps ordered its own A-20s that June. Britain named the bomber versions Boston and the night-fighter and intruder versions Havoc — the name the USAAF adopted for the family — and the American night-fighter conversion became the P-70. Production ended on 20 September 1944: Boeing's historical accounting counts 7,478 built, 7,098 of them by Douglas and 380 by Boeing at Seattle, while History of War counts 7,385. The Soviet Union was the biggest user, receiving 3,125 aircraft. Few survive; museums display several, and in 2025 the restored New Guinea wreck Hell'n Pelican II was returned to Papua New Guinea.
Douglas A-26 Invader
The Douglas A-26 Invader is a twin-engine attack bomber built by the Douglas Aircraft Company — not the Martin B-26 Marauder, a different bomber whose retirement freed the B-26 designation that the Air Force gave the Invader in 1948, confusing the two types ever since. First flown on 10 July 1942 and in service from 1944, the Invader was, in Smithsonian Magazine's words, the fastest U.S. bomber of World War II, and it went on to fight in Korea and Vietnam, the last as the On Mark-rebuilt B-26K, renamed A-26A in 1966. Douglas built 2,503; surplus aircraft became executive transports and fire bombers, and examples still fly.
Douglas A-3 Skywarrior
The Douglas A-3 Skywarrior is a twin-jet carrier-based bomber built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, first flown on 28 October 1952 and in U.S. Navy service from 1956 to 1991. Designed under Ed Heinemann as the Navy's carrier-based nuclear strike aircraft, it was the largest and heaviest aircraft ever designed for regular operation from an aircraft carrier, and its crews nicknamed it "the Whale". Douglas built 282. When ballistic-missile submarines took over the nuclear deterrent in the early 1960s, Skywarriors were converted in numbers to tankers and to electronic-warfare and photographic-reconnaissance aircraft, and served as trainers and testbeds; those second careers carried the type through the Vietnam War to the 1991 Gulf War, and contractor-operated testbeds flew on until 2011.
Douglas B-23 Dragon
The Douglas B-23 Dragon was a twin-engined medium bomber developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company as a successor to the B-18 Bolo, working from the DC-3 airliner. First flown in 1939, it was the first American bomber fitted with a tail gun, but the B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder soon outclassed it and only 38 were built. None saw combat: the type flew patrol, training, transport and test work, eighteen aircraft becoming UC-67 utility transports. Declared surplus after the war, many Dragons flew on as executive transports, and a handful survive today.
Douglas C-124 Globemaster II
The Douglas C-124 Globemaster II was the United States Air Force's heavy strategic airlifter of the 1950s and 1960s, developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company from the C-74 Globemaster and first flown on 27 November 1949. Its clamshell nose doors, loading ramps and double-deck cargo hold let it carry tanks, bulldozers and other fully assembled heavy equipment that no other aircraft of its time could move without disassembly. Douglas built 204 C-124As and 243 C-124Cs, and the Air Force bought 448 in all. C-124s flew airlift in Korea and Southeast Asia, resupplied Antarctica, ferried Thor missiles to England and carried nuclear weapons for Strategic Air Command before the last were retired in 1974; the survivors are museum aircraft.
Douglas C-133 Cargomaster
The Douglas C-133 Cargomaster was a four-engine turboprop strategic airlifter built by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It first flew on 23 April 1956 and went directly into production without prototypes: 50 aircraft, 35 C-133As and 15 C-133Bs, built between 1956 and 1961. Designed to carry complete ballistic missiles and up to 110,000 pounds of cargo, it served the Military Air Transport Service and Military Airlift Command from Dover and Travis, proved invaluable in Vietnam, and was withdrawn in 1971 as fatigue problems mounted and the C-5A Galaxy arrived. Most were scrapped; a handful survive in museums, and one flew in Alaska until 2008.
Douglas C-47 Skytrain
The Douglas C-47 Skytrain was the military transport developed from the DC-3 airliner, first flown on 23 December 1941. Douglas built 10,174 of them and the design was license-produced in the Soviet Union; in British and Commonwealth service it was the Dakota. C-47s served with all the Allied air forces carrying cargo and troops, dropping paratroopers, towing gliders and evacuating casualties, and they went on to fly in the Berlin Airlift and, converted as AC-47 gunships, in Vietnam. Many remain in operation and on museum display today.
Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket
The Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket was a swept-wing research aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the U.S. Navy and flown in a joint program by the NACA, the Navy-Marine Corps and Douglas from 1948 to 1956. Three aircraft were built, flying in jet, jet-and-rocket and all-rocket configurations. On 20 November 1953 the second Skyrocket, dropped from a Navy bomber and flown by Scott Crossfield, became the first aircraft to reach Mach 2. The program's data on swept-wing behavior and pitch-up informed the design of later fighters, and all three Skyrockets survive.
Douglas DC-3
The Douglas DC-3 is a twin-engine airliner that first flew on December 17, 1935, and became the first airliner able to make money carrying passengers alone, without a mail subsidy. Adapted for war as the C-47 Skytrain, it served with air forces around the world, and decades after production ended examples are still at work carrying cargo.
Douglas DC-8
The Douglas DC-8 was Douglas Aircraft Company's four-engined jetliner, developed from an unsuccessful bid for an Air Force jet tanker contract and first flown on 30 May 1958. It entered service with Delta Air Lines in September 1959 as Boeing's chief rival, and in August 1961 a test aircraft became the first airliner to exceed the speed of sound, in a dive. Douglas built 556 by 1972, the family growing from the original series to the stretched Super 60s and the re-engined Super 70s. Most survivors became freighters, NASA flew one as an airborne science laboratory until 2024, and a handful still fly cargo today.
Douglas SBD Dauntless
The Douglas SBD Dauntless was the U.S. Navy's standard carrier-based scout and dive bomber in the first half of the Pacific war. Developed from a Northrop design under Ed Heinemann, it sank four Japanese carriers at Midway in June 1942 and was credited with sinking more than 300,000 tons of enemy shipping, before the Helldiver replaced it in front-line service from 1944.
Douglas TBD Devastator
The Douglas TBD Devastator was the U.S. Navy's first all-metal monoplane torpedo bomber, entering fleet service in 1937 as the most modern carrier aircraft of its day. By 1942 it was outclassed: its squadrons helped sink the light carrier Shōhō at the Coral Sea, but at Midway 35 of the 41 Devastators sent against the Japanese carriers were shot down and their torpedoes scored no hits. Withdrawn from front-line service and replaced by the Grumman TBF Avenger, the type was gone by the end of 1944, and no complete example survives.
Douglas X-3 Stiletto
A jet research aircraft built by Douglas Aircraft Company to explore sustained Mach 2 flight, low-aspect-ratio wings and the large-scale use of titanium. Two were approved but only one was completed: substitute Westinghouse J34 engines left it severely underpowered, and it passed Mach 1 only in dives, reaching Mach 1.208. Its lasting contribution was an inadvertent 1954 demonstration of roll coupling that fed a NACA research programme, and a wing form later used in the F-104. The aircraft survives at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.