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In addition, the company won an assortment of experimental orders for aircraft, including the long-range penetration XF-88 Voodoo fighter, the tiny, bomber-borne XF-85 parasite jet fighter, the first ramjet helicopter ("Little Henry"), radio-controlled bombs and jet-powered "drone" aircraft to simulate attacks on fighter pilots during training.
Low Overhead. Mac McDonnell still keeps his nose close to his drawing board, his eye on production. He likes to pad around the huge war-surplus plant on the edge of Lambert-St. Louis field, uses a public-address system to tell his 6,500 employees about new orders as soon as they come in. Lest they think that he is overpaid, he reminded them in his last annual report that his own salary (after taxes) is only "equal to the wages ... of ten unskilled laborers."
By such informal touches and by generous benefits (retirement plans, stock-participation programs, etc.), McDonnell has kept morale high, has never lost a day's production through strikes. Neither has he lost his Scotch canniness; for the annual Christmas party, he figured out that exactly twelve ounces of eggnog per person was the right amount to insure conviviality without excessive hilarity—and ordered the whisky accordingly. As a result of such dollar-watching, his overhead, says the Navy, is among the lowest in the business.