Wartime Production
The onset of World War II signaled the end of the civil Howard aircraft line. The U.S. Navy procured about 525 modified DGA-15s for use as the GH-2 Nightingale air ambulance, the GH-1 and GH-3 utility transport, and the NH-1 instrument trainer aircraft. Exceptionally roomy and high-powered, the modified DGA-15 was also difficult to land and quite unforgiving—earning the unwanted nickname of “Ensign Eliminator.” The U.S. Army Air Corps also acquired a variety of prewar Howard aircraft as utility aircraft.
Howard also produced a two-seat open-cockpit DGA-18 trainer (also referred to as DGA-125), and later a license-built version of the Fairchild PT-23.
Many of the U.S. Navy Howard-built aircraft were sold to civil pilot owners postwar and a number are still airworthy in 2012.
After producing several of the most famous racing and private aircraft of the Golden Age of Aviation, the Howard Aircraft Corporation ceased production in 1944. Stockholders elected not to produce civilian aircraft after the war, sold the aviation assets, and used the proceeds to buy an electric-motor manufacturing company in Racine, Wisconsin, and named it Howard Industries.
Read more about this topic: Howard Aircraft Corporation
Famous quotes containing the words wartime and/or production:
“The man who gets drunk in peacetime is a coward. The man who gets drunk in wartime goes on being a coward.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)
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