Louisans have grown used to seeing jobs disappear by the planeload in the past decade--20, 000 of them from McDonnellDouglas alone, the airplane company Boeing bought in 1997.
The sprawling aerospace company forged from the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft in 1967 saw its carrier-based A-12 bomber canceled in January, and then lost the competition to build a successor to its signature F-15 fighter three months later.
By the time the Cold War ended, it was neck and neck with McDonnellDouglas a company from which it regularly stole executive talent for the title of top Pentagon contractor.