Home of the Howard 500

planes, bikes, fishin

The plane I work with

Here you will find the things i do for work and play. At work i fly and maintain the country\'s only flying Howard 500 aircraft. It is a full time job working with this plane. It was built from 1958-1963, and only 17 of them were ever made. Dee Howard of San Antonio TX built it as an executive transport that could traverse the continent non-stop. It is pressurized and cruises at about 325 mph at about 20,000ft. It weighs about 35,000lbs, seats 12 and was definately a plane designed ahead of it\'s time. It has hydraulically boosted controls, 2500 horse power engines which are Pratt & Whitney R2800 models, they are water injected 2808 cubic inch 2 stage supercharged piston engines that consume about 200 gallons per hour in flight,  total. I rebuilt this plane back in 1995-97 and have been flying it ever since. It is currently used as it was originally designed as our coporate plane just as any small jet would be. The company that uses it is a crane service out of Eagan, MN.

My other interest include fishing and cycling as well as messing with building computers now and then.

 
Dave Cummings