Howard DGA-6 Mister Mulligan

Cy Perkins had five flying at skylark field in lake Elsinore for jump planes

reply

2017-06-03 Had the pleasure of giving a BFR in a Howard and felt guilty accepting remuneration. Absolute pleasure to fly with a very proficient pilot. On the landings that were so soft I honestly question whether we had landed.

reply

Actually I just learned of this plane and wondered if anyone knows why it is called Mr 'Mulligan. You will be able to guess why I am interested from my name.

reply

A Damn Good Airplane, that's were DGA stands for, with an pepped up Pratt & Whitney R.1340 of 830 HP. At sea level it had and max. speed of 251 mph, using only 550 hp, using it's full 830 hp the speed was 287 mph, at 11.000 feet using 550 hp it's speed was 292 mph. Quite nicely for a braced fixed gear plane who looked like a king-size Monocoupe in the thirties....

reply

The plane you flew in the Navy was the Howard DGA 15, which was the most commercially successful of Benny Howard's adaptations of the Mr. Mulligan design. It had a substantially wider cabin and a smaller engine (450 HP Pratt) but otherwise looked very similar. He sold some as a high-end civilian plane, but most were originally built for the Navy, where they were use in the variety of ways you mentioned
There are something like 50 or 75 Howards still flying. a few are still working as bush planes, but most are in the hands of collector. I saw one a few years ago at a antique fly-in that had been beautifully restored to its original condition as a Navy instrument trainer, complete with the yoke and second panel in the back.

reply

It could not have been this airplane (the DGA-6) Mister Mulligan, it was the only DGA-6 built and was competing in the 1936 Bendix trophy race lost a propeller blade and crashed near Crownpoint, New Mexico.
34 years later it was recovered to use as patterns to make a replica in 1970.
'Mr Mulligan' was the only plane specifically designed and built for the Bendix Trophy race, which it won in 1935, and it also won the Thompson Trophy the same year and is the only aircraft to ever win both. The plane was designed to fly the entire length of the Bendix race from Burbank, CA to Clevland, OH, also a first non-stop and won by only 28 seconds. The success of the design led to the creation of the Howard aircraft Company, and several successful designs based on the DGA-6 were created through World War 2.

reply

I, and many Navy pilots flew this plane in WWII. It was used mainly as an Instrument trainer. NAS Memphis was a big hub. Instructor flew with 2 cadets per hop. Each had 30 min. "under the hood" in the back that had a full instrument panel. We instructors had to look out for traffic and talk them thru it. The other cadet also watched for traffic. Problem was we flew them about 400 pounds overloaded and had to land the Navy way--tail 1st-- in an overloaded wallowing plane. Worse, the cadets had to ride thru the landing with us, I also flew it rigged as an ambulance ship with 2 tiers of stretchers and nurse seat, again overloaded. Patients were often young Marines blinded from drinking wood alcohol from Jeep radiators. Lousy duty to see them blinded. Flew them from transport drop in Kansas City to eye clinic in Norman, OK. If plane not overlaoded and you could make wheel landings, it did well compared to the Stinson Reliant SR-10C of its time. Howard named it the DGA, for Damned Good AIrplane, which it was.

reply

Charles Lindberg flew this aircraft at MCAS Santa Barbara (Goleta) circa 1943-44. All flight ops had been cancelled due high winds but he flew a local hop with 3 passengers from base ops. Reports were that due his extraodinary reflexes, the flight (and landing) was amazingly smooth.

reply

Fue un aeroplano extraordinario, muy avanzado a su tiempo.

reply