Between this and Drach's six hour Patreon Drydock, I am convinced that this is a coordinated hitjob on the schedule of everyone who is into 20th century tech history
RUclips: *massively pushes short-form content* Quality content creators: *oh, my viewers prefer long videos, let's make a movie* Love it, Rex, thank you!!!!!!! Take notes, YT...
This video sparks an interest in the growth, mergers, bankruptcies and a acquisitions of the American aircraft industry throughout the history of what is now basically 3 giant companies....I'd love to see that vid
Nice, the Douglas Aircraft is one of the more interesting companies. Back in the early 80's my dad's friend had a DC-3 he flew out of Zephyrhills, ferrying skydivers. Once, they took me up in it when dad went skydiving. After dad and the rest of the skydivers jumped, dad's buddy had me come to the cockpit, and sit in the copilots seat. I was amazed watching him calmly handling and explaining all of the levers, dials, buttons, and toggles. That was a hell of a day.
This MD history brings a tear to my eye! As a former USAF F-4 and F-15 pilot, and a retired Airline pilot, I really loved Micky Dee aircraft. I flew the DC-10, MD-10, and MD-11 for close to 20,000 hours.. MD built great aircraft!.. and for the Boeing people... they are good airplanes.. but I preferred MD.. ( I flew the B-727, B-747, and the B-777)
Suggestion: that one time the US tried to make a nucular-powered jet-engine for their stealth-bomber. The exhaust-fuel was U-238 salts if memory serves... yum!
It was an extraordinary pleasure for me to watch the video and listen to your voice while I built a scalemodel in 1/35. And before that I watched your legendary video about the Do X. For the 3rd time... I love your way of telling stories and even if I don't always understand everything 100% because I'm German, I never find it difficult to keep track. Thank you very much for that.
The DC-3 quickly became my favorite in MSFS, and after 100 hours I'm more than eager for a Rex-style history of the company. Your timing is impeccable and you spoil us with such a lengthy video. Goodnight!
This is a brilliant documentary, excellent details and pictures throughout the journey of Douglas.. I've been watching it over 2 days and have totally enjoyed every moment, thankyou for being such a good narrator and doing so much research... Love it , huge thumbs up
Great video! I really enjoyed it and appreciate the improved content over the original. One nit… unlike NASA, NACA is only pronounced by the letters “N-A-C-A”.
My dad worked here as an experimental development mechanic. He built the part that held the two tell wings and the vertical wing tail. He named me after this company. Douglas
I’m compiling a comprehensive list of airplanes from the history of flight and your videos are instrumental in my research. My grandfather was in the USAAF from the 1920s through the 1950s and he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in WWII, where he worked with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. Thanks for your detailed work.
Thank you for the effort and well presented story of Don Douglas and his company. One of his aircraft designs is amongst my five favorite aircraft - the Skyraider or Spad. I am a business entrepreneur of 40 years, and love to read about and greatly admire self made men and women. I have read Henry Ford's autobiograghy many times - My life and work which was written during the production years of the T model. Again, thank you.
Not an aircraft nerd or historian, nor do I work in the industry. It's just interesting to see how people with larger testicles than me solved problems with little to none hindsight to work off of. Like building a machine to keep a bunch of primates airborne... Ape together strong... 😁
Very excellent work. Particularly liked the analysis of the difficulties, faced by so many big companies, as they managed the changeover from 'founder old-guard' to 'new guns' leadership in a background of rapid technological development. Sadly the escalating complexity & cost of modern large-scale engineering development has meant inevitable consolidation everywhere. With so few organisations working in any given area it has made much of the engineering world an increasingly boring space of product convergence with little of the amazing & exciting product variety around in the ~1920s - ~1960s. This has brought about extremely capable and cost effective products, though.
Whewwweeweeeeew 3 and *half* hours of Rex's aviation babble?(I mean that in the most endearing way, I know Rex puts enormous amounts of research in.) Count me in!!!
One thing missing here was the push for larger military transports such as the C-54 being procured in larger numbers due to the Berlin Airlift showing the new USAF that its existing C47 capacity was lacking.
The onboard mechanics on the Douglas World Cruisers were originally Non-Commissioned Officers. However, it was discovered that at many destinations the rank of the mechanics would make awkward for them to attend welcome ceremonies. So the US Army promoted the sergeants to lieutenants.
Lol, I paused video and closed app with about 10 min left, to do something else for a minute, and when I re-opened, the app showed the video in my history as fully viewed. I guess at 95% complete they assume I was just skipping out on the final 10 seconds of patreon names that most vids would have. But I'm like "No, I still haven't heard about the merger!"
Lovely to see an Air New Zealand DC-8 pop up a few times! Thanks for making this. I knew less than nothing about Douglas aircraft other than the DC3s. And the early jet airliner story is invariably told in terms of either the genius of the boffins at De Havilland, or else the triumph of Boeing's vision for the future.
I learned so much from this. Absolutely fascinating. To my shame, I knew very little about the civilian airliner story, having been a militiary aircraft fan from a boy. I now realise what I should have realised much earlier - that the military and civilian stories were inextricably intertwined.
Dad (rip) flu dc-3s dc5 DC 9s and dc-9 stretch starting back in the late 50s for Hawaiian airlines. He would make the "pineapple run" from Molakai to O'ahu hauling pineapples. As a child living near Diamondhead I would always hear those big radials as he flew over the house. There was not a lot aircraft activity back in those days ✈️🛫🛬 Thanks Dad we miss you 💖
A small correction needed, the DC-3 and C-47 are not the same airframes, the C-47 has stronger bulkhead and thicker flooring, plus the Cargo Doors, the DC-3's military counterpart is called the C-53 Skytrooper. Most C-47's were converted to Passanger Carriers, but most were used as Cargo Carriers up north in Canada and Alaska post war
It seems that most creators I watch or listen to have been met with success after disregarding time constraints and providing quality information for as long as a given story takes to tell. Look at Hardcore History, episode length went out the window and listeners poured in by the thousands. Algorithm be damned. Thanks for making this fascinating content.
Thanks for the insight into the ups and downs and turmoil over Douglas's history. I worked at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis from the mid 80's to mid 90's. Despite having the F-15, F-18, and Harrier in production, it seemed like they didn't know what to do next. They lost the ATF (YF-23), the ATA (A-12), and a big helicopter program (don't recall the details), and the stock price dropped to about 1/3 of what it had been. Maybe it was bad luck? Maybe they weren't donating to the campaigns of enough senators? Or maybe the nephews of James McDonnell weren't the best people to be running the company? I left and got a job that wasn't dependent on the political winds. I am impressed that the folks in St. Louis are still producing F-15's after all of this time, though!
48:53 USPS actually has an armed SWAT team. Kind of nuts to me that even as late as the early 1930s, most aircraft manufacturers were still building their planes completely by hand. Ain't going to lie. I teared up a bit over Jr and Sr overcoming their relationship issues. Despite his dad basically disowning him over his marriage, he was still there for him when he needed it. Course it probably helped that he too got divorced, basically proving his dad right when he said "Don't marry that woman." Despite the company's eventual collapse, it cannot be denied that Douglas aircraft saved thousands apon thousands, if not tens of thousands, of lives with just three models. The TBD Devastator The SBD Dauntless THE C-47 SKYTRAIN
You keep asking silly questions about the uses of the Mosquito. Can I suggest you do a little research - it was THE first true multirole combat aircraft. It had around 40 variants and was used for practically EVERYTHING. Fighter, bomber, precision strike attack, recon, anti submarine, anti ship (rockets, torpedo and highball), nightfighter, V1 interceptor, pathfinder, secret cargo/passenger carrier etc. Also, being made predominantly of wood, it absorbed rounds rather than being shredded like aluminium aircraft were. Luftwaffe pilots could claim 2 kills if they could manage to down a Mossie - that should tell you something.
Between this and Drach's six hour Patreon Drydock, I am convinced that this is a coordinated hitjob on the schedule of everyone who is into 20th century tech history
you might be right.... who cares about resposibileties, long live DRACH AND REX
I would guess that these creators have significant watcher overlap
No more doom scrolling, I just need hours on a topic without hyperactivity, without distracting tangents, just one theme and a good narrator.
A 3 and a half hour history of Douglas Aircraft? You absolute legend.
This masterpiece is why anyone who likes aircraft and watches youtube is very lucky!
RUclips: *massively pushes short-form content* Quality content creators: *oh, my viewers prefer long videos, let's make a movie* Love it, Rex, thank you!!!!!!! Take notes, YT...
Exactly !
Shorts and A.I. generated crap is killing RUclips.....the down fall of RUclips will be his next video lol
As the MD people have done to Boeing, they also did to Douglas: They let the business majors run things instead of the engineers.
McDonnell has now managed to murder two perfectly good aircraft manufacturers.
What’s sad is what happened to Douglas is almost an exact parallel of what’s going on with Boeing now.
"Special extended edition" we're reaching LotR levels here
But not Das Boot uncut levels
@@Daniel_cheems we'll eventually get there
Leave those for Drach.@@Daniel_cheems
This video sparks an interest in the growth, mergers, bankruptcies and a acquisitions of the American aircraft industry throughout the history of what is now basically 3 giant companies....I'd love to see that vid
Nice, the Douglas Aircraft is one of the more interesting companies. Back in the early 80's my dad's friend had a DC-3 he flew out of Zephyrhills, ferrying skydivers. Once, they took me up in it when dad went skydiving. After dad and the rest of the skydivers jumped, dad's buddy had me come to the cockpit, and sit in the copilots seat. I was amazed watching him calmly handling and explaining all of the levers, dials, buttons, and toggles. That was a hell of a day.
This MD history brings a tear to my eye!
As a former USAF F-4 and F-15 pilot, and a retired Airline pilot, I really loved Micky Dee aircraft. I flew the DC-10, MD-10, and MD-11 for close to 20,000 hours.. MD built great aircraft!.. and for the Boeing people... they are good airplanes.. but I preferred MD.. ( I flew the B-727, B-747, and the B-777)
Q&A / Request Section - Ask your questions, or post suggestions, here :)
What’s the hardest and easiest part of making your videos?
Also if I can request at the same time; the R3Y trade wind would be pretty cool
I have an idea for a funny video. If you could mix the planes from one country to another at the start of the WWII what would you do?
Could you do a video on super props
Suggestion: that one time the US tried to make a nucular-powered jet-engine for their stealth-bomber. The exhaust-fuel was U-238 salts if memory serves... yum!
Rex if you still take requests, I would really like to see a video about the WW2 romanian IAR 80 fighter. Thanks!
It was an extraordinary pleasure for me to watch the video and listen to your voice while I built a scalemodel in 1/35. And before that I watched your legendary video about the Do X. For the 3rd time... I love your way of telling stories and even if I don't always understand everything 100% because I'm German, I never find it difficult to keep track. Thank you very much for that.
The DC-3 quickly became my favorite in MSFS, and after 100 hours I'm more than eager for a Rex-style history of the company. Your timing is impeccable and you spoil us with such a lengthy video. Goodnight!
I'm 2 and a half hours in and I am RIVETED. Thanks Rex for having an engaging narrative and I have to say, astonising level of research.
I've been longing for an extended version of the Douglas full history video and all I can say is... It's super worth the wait! ❤
Having watched all of Drachinifel's anything up to 6 hour marathon Dry Dock's, I don't consider 3½ hours of Rex isn't in the least part excessive. 😁
I see Rex's Hangar, I click....as simple as that!
This is a brilliant documentary, excellent details and pictures throughout the journey of Douglas.. I've been watching it over 2 days and have totally enjoyed every moment, thankyou for being such a good narrator and doing so much research... Love it , huge thumbs up
Thanks!
Great video! I really enjoyed it and appreciate the improved content over the original.
One nit… unlike NASA, NACA is only pronounced by the letters “N-A-C-A”.
Thank you, I just love these long format in depth harangues, & listen to them over & over again.
Lol, never heard someone call these “harangues”, but I’m sure my friends would agree lol. I yap at them for HOURS about airplanes sometimes hahahaha 😂
My dad worked here as an experimental development mechanic. He built the part that held the two tell wings and the vertical wing tail. He named me after this company. Douglas
Glad to have the extra details that didn’t make the shorter version
The next 3 hours and 30 minutes now has a purpose
Listening to rex and petting dogs is now my agenda for the day
I have a wonderful documentary to learn about aviation and hopefully not fall asleep, but I usually end up listening to these 3 or 4 times.
One of the few youtube 3 and a half hour vids worth watching 🎉
I'm impressed 👏
Yes
no it doent
I’m compiling a comprehensive list of airplanes from the history of flight and your videos are instrumental in my research. My grandfather was in the USAAF from the 1920s through the 1950s and he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in WWII, where he worked with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. Thanks for your detailed work.
Thank you for the effort and well presented story of Don Douglas and his company. One of his aircraft designs is amongst my five favorite aircraft - the Skyraider or Spad. I am a business entrepreneur of 40 years, and love to read about and greatly admire self made men and women. I have read Henry Ford's autobiograghy many times - My life and work which was written during the production years of the T model. Again, thank you.
Finally a video I can fall asleep to and rewind at a later date.
Much respect to the work ethic it takes for a 3 hour video with editing and narrating the video. I can only imagine how many hours it took to finish
My word, what a master piece, again. Just absolutely fabulous material as always. Thank you so much for all this work. You rock, harder than ever.
Thanks Rex, the long form and detailed video is greatly underrated by RUclips.
LOOOONG form documentaries can be good or bad, you are definitely in the Very Good category.
Not an aircraft nerd or historian, nor do I work in the industry. It's just interesting to see how people with larger testicles than me solved problems with little to none hindsight to work off of. Like building a machine to keep a bunch of primates airborne... Ape together strong... 😁
Ook.
I straight up love these videos you put out. TOP NOTCH!!!! quality!!!
Love your long form videos dude! Thanks for making this! (Love the short ones too, they’re all great!)
Thank you, Rex. A superb documentary.
Rex thanks that was awesome and a professional production great job 👍🇺🇸
Rex, you legend. This fascinating history, that I didn't know I needed, got me through a 4 hour drive. Thank you!
Very excellent work. Particularly liked the analysis of the difficulties, faced by so many big companies, as they managed the changeover from 'founder old-guard' to 'new guns' leadership in a background of rapid technological development. Sadly the escalating complexity & cost of modern large-scale engineering development has meant inevitable consolidation everywhere. With so few organisations working in any given area it has made much of the engineering world an increasingly boring space of product convergence with little of the amazing & exciting product variety around in the ~1920s - ~1960s.
This has brought about extremely capable and cost effective products, though.
Whewwweeweeeeew 3 and *half* hours of Rex's aviation babble?(I mean that in the most endearing way, I know Rex puts enormous amounts of research in.) Count me in!!!
Alright! Another Rex video! Beats watching/listening to the Minnesota Vikings for sure.
Needed this. Internets been out all day and my phone is all I have so this saved me from boredom
One thing missing here was the push for larger military transports such as the C-54 being procured in larger numbers due to the Berlin Airlift showing the new USAF that its existing C47 capacity was lacking.
3 1/2 hours of aircraft history to fall asleep to. Lovin' it!
The onboard mechanics on the Douglas World Cruisers were originally Non-Commissioned Officers. However, it was discovered that at many destinations the rank of the mechanics would make awkward for them to attend welcome ceremonies. So the US Army promoted the sergeants to lieutenants.
Absolutely fantastic documentary, your usage of so many different images and videos is wonderful. Thank you so much for putting this together!
Eatin good today, first this masterpiece. Then Not A Pound's Super Sabre
Really good in-depth survey .. fascinating and enjoyable. Thank you.
Lol, I paused video and closed app with about 10 min left, to do something else for a minute, and when I re-opened, the app showed the video in my history as fully viewed. I guess at 95% complete they assume I was just skipping out on the final 10 seconds of patreon names that most vids would have. But I'm like "No, I still haven't heard about the merger!"
Liked and subscribed 👍🇺🇸
Love it, so fascinating to get the details behind so many historic & iconic moments
Great job! Very torough, very interesting!
Lovely to see an Air New Zealand DC-8 pop up a few times!
Thanks for making this. I knew less than nothing about Douglas aircraft other than the DC3s. And the early jet airliner story is invariably told in terms of either the genius of the boffins at De Havilland, or else the triumph of Boeing's vision for the future.
I read somewhere that the DC-8 was the first commercial aircraft to fly at Mach 1, I worked on many of these during the 1970’s good airplane ✈️
Finally something to fall asleep to
I learned so much from this. Absolutely fascinating. To my shame, I knew very little about the civilian airliner story, having been a militiary aircraft fan from a boy. I now realise what I should have realised much earlier - that the military and civilian stories were inextricably intertwined.
I thought three and a half would be over the top but every minute had it’s purpose
Dad (rip) flu dc-3s dc5 DC 9s and dc-9 stretch starting back in the late 50s for Hawaiian airlines. He would make the "pineapple run" from Molakai to O'ahu hauling pineapples. As a child living near Diamondhead I would always hear those big radials as he flew over the house. There was not a lot aircraft activity back in those days
✈️🛫🛬 Thanks Dad we miss you 💖
Well done indeed! I look forward to the sequels! 🙃
Tremendous work Rex, thank you very much indeed.
The Boeing B-52 said "hold my beer" and to this day, that beer is still being held.
Been waiting all day to watch this!
Superb job Rex, thank you.
time well spent today.
I did read that a DC3 in India during ww2 damaged a wing and lacking a spare, a DC2 wing was installed. Nicknamed the DC2-1/2, it still flew fine.
A small correction needed, the DC-3 and C-47 are not the same airframes, the C-47 has stronger bulkhead and thicker flooring, plus the Cargo Doors, the DC-3's military counterpart is called the C-53 Skytrooper. Most C-47's were converted to Passanger Carriers, but most were used as Cargo Carriers up north in Canada and Alaska post war
Have no idea who u are but thanks to the algorithm, im 3 hours into this insanely detailed video 😂
around 01:49:02 - all this needs is one of those maps that one got in Indiana Jones' montages
Please! Like and Subscribe before the engrossing content sucks you in to the point that you forget to eat or go to work.
A hugely impressive piece of work!
It seems that most creators I watch or listen to have been met with success after disregarding time constraints and providing quality information for as long as a given story takes to tell. Look at Hardcore History, episode length went out the window and listeners poured in by the thousands. Algorithm be damned. Thanks for making this fascinating content.
Amazong Video, very happy I stumbled across your channel by chance
Excellent detail in this doc
48:53 my friend, have you not heard of the US postal inspectors?
TFE?
@randomlyentertaining8287 yep
Bloody fantastic vid. Only complaint is Rex referring to Airlines as AIRLINERS.
A balmy 30 degrees in north Iowa. Don't be slipping on that ice Mike . It gets harder to get back up as we age lol.
And since then has been crapped on by two further companies. Great vid thank you very much.
Excelente vídeo ! Não é fácil condensar uma história rica em detalhes tendo pouco tempo para isso!
"Not afraid of long informative videos" nah we love this shit bro
Thanks for the insight into the ups and downs and turmoil over Douglas's history. I worked at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis from the mid 80's to mid 90's. Despite having the F-15, F-18, and Harrier in production, it seemed like they didn't know what to do next. They lost the ATF (YF-23), the ATA (A-12), and a big helicopter program (don't recall the details), and the stock price dropped to about 1/3 of what it had been. Maybe it was bad luck? Maybe they weren't donating to the campaigns of enough senators? Or maybe the nephews of James McDonnell weren't the best people to be running the company? I left and got a job that wasn't dependent on the political winds. I am impressed that the folks in St. Louis are still producing F-15's after all of this time, though!
You’ve spoiled us yet again, Rex!
There was a documentary and book on this topic by Michael White.
Super content so far at 1:02:30.
Note to self. Brits apparently pronounce "PAH-kard" as Picard, as in Jon Luc
Back to the video :)
We pronounce it pack-ard
Im about to catch some of the most heavenly zzzzz's of my existence with this one
for the algo. awesome job lad 😎
48:53
USPS actually has an armed SWAT team.
Kind of nuts to me that even as late as the early 1930s, most aircraft manufacturers were still building their planes completely by hand.
Ain't going to lie. I teared up a bit over Jr and Sr overcoming their relationship issues. Despite his dad basically disowning him over his marriage, he was still there for him when he needed it. Course it probably helped that he too got divorced, basically proving his dad right when he said "Don't marry that woman."
Despite the company's eventual collapse, it cannot be denied that Douglas aircraft saved thousands apon thousands, if not tens of thousands, of lives with just three models.
The TBD Devastator
The SBD Dauntless
THE C-47 SKYTRAIN
Thanks mate , that was epic.
The best documentaries, like Grateful Dead concerts, are always more than three hours long.
At 1:45:32 between the cockpit and the navigators position is that the wine rack?
Subscribed. Love your work.
WONDERFUL photos
Excellant photos!!Merci
Thanks rex
In about 3 or 4 different ways, this is why I still bother getting out of bed in the morning.
oh snap, 3 hours!!!! RIGHT ON!!!
Well done
Oh hot damn, perfect timing!
You keep asking silly questions about the uses of the Mosquito. Can I suggest you do a little research - it was THE first true multirole combat aircraft. It had around 40 variants and was used for practically EVERYTHING. Fighter, bomber, precision strike attack, recon, anti submarine, anti ship (rockets, torpedo and highball), nightfighter, V1 interceptor, pathfinder, secret cargo/passenger carrier etc. Also, being made predominantly of wood, it absorbed rounds rather than being shredded like aluminium aircraft were. Luftwaffe pilots could claim 2 kills if they could manage to down a Mossie - that should tell you something.
Great job bloke.
Fantastic images
You could do a whole channel, dedicated to missiles, especially as nobody else has!