Howard DGA-6
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the experimental racing plane. For the golf term, see Mulligan.
The Howard DGA-6 was a pioneer racing plane, nicknamed Mister Mulligan. It was the only airplane ever designed for the specific purpose of winning the Bendix Trophy.[citation needed] The plane was designed and developed by Ben Howard and Gordon Israel, who later became an engineer for the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation. Mister Mulligan was designed to fly the entire length of the race nonstop and at high altitude. Neither had ever been done before. Mister Mulligan won the trophy, and thus changed the way in which long distance airplanes were designed.[citation needed]
Contents |
[edit] History
The Bendix Trophy was a cross-country race from the west coast to the site of the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio, and typically was the starting event of the week-long aviation festival. The Thompson Trophy was awarded to the winner of the unlimited division in close-course pylon racing at the National Air Races.[1]
The sole DGA-6 was constructed in 1934. It featured a steel tube fuselage with a plywood-skinned wing. Howard freely admitted he was inspired by "seeing the Monocoupe from the wrong end" during air races; The DGA-6 can thus be termed an "overgrown Monocoupe".
While enroute to the 1934 air races, oxygen and fuel system problems caused an off-field landing which damaged the gear and propeller. The aircraft could not be repaired in time and missed the 1934 season.[2]
In the 1935 Bendix race the aircraft was loaded with 300 gallons of gasoline, 30 gallons of oil and oxygen equipment for two giving it the ability to fly for 7 hours at 22,000 feet (6,700 m). At that load the aircraft required 1,500 feet (460 m) of runway and had an initial climb out of close to 2000 fpm..[1]
Howard and Israel flew the DGA-6 in the Bendix and won with a speed of 238.70 m.p.h., and Harold Neumann racing the DGA-6 flew at 220.19 mph (354.36 km/h) in winning the Thompson Trophy at the 1935 National Air Races. No other pilot or single aircraft had ever won both races.[3] Howard's DGA-6 also had the distinction of being the only racer during the golden age of airshows to evolve into a successful commercial production aircraft, first as the DGA-8 and DGA-9, DGA-11, and DGA-12.[1]
Howard's engineering advantage was his low-drag airframe and the use of the 850 horsepower (630 kW) Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial. The fuel capacity of the four-seat Mister Mulligan made the difference in the Bendix race as Howard and Israel beat Roscoe Turner by less than a minute thanks to two fewer fueling stops in the race from Burbank, California, to Cleveland, although Turner's 1,000 hp (750 kW) Pratt & Whitney Hornet on his Weddell-Williams racer gave him the power advantage.[1]
Mister Mulligan broke Weddell-Williams' three-year streak of wins in the Bendix.[citation needed] By the end of the week, Howard and his DGA-6 replaced Weddell-Williams as the rising star of aviation by upsetting defending champion Turner in the Thompson race after he was forced out. Newspapers hailed the 1935 event as the "Ben Howard National Air Races".[1]
Unfortunately, the DGA-6's days on the national air race scene were limited. The next year, Howard and his wife were injured when Mister Mulligan lost a propeller blade and crash-landed near Crownpoint, New Mexico during the latter stages of the 1936 Bendix (New York - Los Angeles) race. Howard recovered from the serious injuries resulting from the crash, but lost a leg in the accident and Mister Mulligan was destroyed.[4] Roscoe Turner met a similar fate, ground-looping on a rough field in Texas. The misfortunes of Howard and Turner opened the way for Arkansan Louise Thadden in her Beechcraft Staggerwing to become the first woman to win a national air trophy.
34 years later, racing enthusiast, Bob Reichardt tracked down Mister Mulligan's crash site and was surprised to find most of the parts were still in usable condition, protected by local dry, mountain climate.[5] With the salvaged parts as patterns, Reichardt was able to recreate Mister Mulligan but was killed in 1977[6] while doing a timed run over the Tonopah, Nevada dry lake.[7]
The success of Mister Mulligan led to the formation of the Howard Aircraft Corporation on January 1, 1937.
[edit] Specifications (Howard DGA-6)
General characteristics
- Crew: 2
- Length: 25 ft 0 in (7.6 meters)
- Wingspan: 31 ft 1 in (9.5 meters)
- Height: 9 ft 0 in (2.9 meters)
- Wing area: unk (unk)
- Empty weight: unk (unk)
- Loaded weight: 5,000 lb (2272 kg)
- Max takeoff weight: 5,000 lb (2272 kg)
- Powerplant: 1× Pratt & Whitney Wasp air-cooled radial, 850 hp (unk)
Performance
- Maximum speed: 260 mph (unk)
- Range: 1,500 miles ()
- Service ceiling 22,000 ft ()
- Rate of climb: 2,000 fpm ()
- Power/mass: 5.9 lb:1 hp ()
Armament none
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named.27hist.27 - ^ Howard DGA-6 Mister Mulligan. Arkansas Air Museum. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
- ^ Graves, Darrell (1999). Howard DGA-6 "Mister Mulligan". Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
- ^ Benny Howard and His Darned Good Airplanes. Centennial of Flight. U. S. Centennial of Flight Commission. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
- ^ Mister Mulligan. Fiddler's Green. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
- ^ NTSB Identification: OAK78FVW01. NTSB aviation accident database. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
- ^ Timeless Voices of Aviation "Voice of the Week" - Jim Younkin. Timeless Voices of Aviation. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
[edit] External links
|
|||||
|
||||||||||||||
