Howard DGA-15P. The King of Cabin Antiques. A restoration project for someone who wants to fly sooner rather than later.
Fuselage:
The beauty of this fuselage lies in the absence of any apparent rust or structural damage. There is no apparent need for structural repair on the tubular fuselage: just clean up, refinish and re-assemble the rest.
The “bird-cage formers on the lower fuselage are well preserved as you can see in the pictures below.
The cockpit controls, panel, control cables, crank-down window mechanism etc. are still in place – a great help when faced to put things back together after cleaning and reconditioning.
The landing gear still has the original wheel set-up.
Many other items included:
Control surfaces, tailfeathers, fuel tanks, engine mount, and loads of stuff too numerous to list
History:
This DGA-15P was delivered to the US NAVY in 1943 with the model designation NH-1, meaning it was designed to be an instrument instruction airplane. These models were typically equipped with three (3) cockpit control sets: two in the conventional side –by-side configuration and a third “cockpit” behind the left front seat. This third cockpit was fully equipped with flight and engine controls and a separate instrument panel behind which the student would “sweat”.
The Navy based a flock of these NH-1’s at NAS Atlanta during the War. Much of the Navy facility including 4 hangars and the Operations Building still remain in use today at EPPS Aviation on what is now called DEKALB PEACHTREE Airport. (Yes, that EPPS as in Pat Epps of Greenland Lockheed P-38 recovery fame!)
The NH-1’s were assigned to the Navy’s IFIS, the Instrument Flight Instructors School. Over it’s relatively short life from 1943 to 1945 IFIS graduated some 3,000 pilots including Marine Corps aviator TYRONE POWER, who gained fame as a Hollywood movie star after the War.
As late as September 1945 some 90 HOWARD NH-1’s were still based in Atlanta along with 13 SNJ’s and 61 SNB’s, - what a collection of Pratt and Whitneys!
