Recently acquired by Boeing in the biggest aerospace take-over in history, McDonnell Douglas has a long and distinguished in the airliner business that stretches back to before World War II with their immortal DC-3-arguably the world` s first truly modern airliner. Entering the jet age in the late 1950s with the shapely DC-8, McDonnell Douglas consolidated its position as Boeing` s only serious American rival in the civil market over the next four decades with aircraft designs like the DC-9, DC-10 and MD-80/-90 family.