Benny Howard and Mister Mulligan, the Homebuilt Cabin Racer That Won the Bendix and the Thompson in the Same Year

In 1935, a homebuilt high-wing cabin airplane called Mister Mulligan did what no aircraft had done before or since: it won both the Bendix Trophy (the transcontinental speed dash) and the Thompson Trophy (the closed-course pylon race) in the same year. Built in a garage by self-taught pilot Benny Howard and young engineer Gordon Israel, it beat the entire field twice in one week and proved that a practical, passenger-carrying airplane could also be the fastest thing in the sky.

What Were the Bendix and Thompson Trophies?

In the 1930s, air racing was a national obsession. Every Labor Day, tens of thousands of spectators packed the grandstands at the National Air Races in Cleveland to watch the fastest airplanes ever built tear around pylons close to the ground.

Two prizes mattered most, and they demanded opposite airplanes.

The Thompson Trophy was the closed-course pylon race, flown right in front of the crowd. Pilots hauled their machines around a triangular course so hard that they would gray out in the turns. It rewarded a tiny, brutal sprinter. Men died flying it.

The Bendix Trophy was a transcontinental dash - a flat-out race across the country, typically launching from the West Coast and finishing at Cleveland in time for the main show. It rewarded range, fuel load, and nerve over thousands of miles, not tight turns.

Because the two races demanded such different aircraft, no one had ever won both in a single year. You built for one or the other.

Who Was Benny Howard?

Benjamin Howard was born in 1904 and never attended a formal engineering school. He taught himself to fly, barnstormed for a living, and - by his own telling - ran contraband across state lines in his early lean years, when that paid better than honest flying. He learned airplanes with his hands, a wrench, and very little money.

He began building race planes in a garage, naming them like family: Pete, Mike, and Ike - small, homely, fast clipped-wing racers. Howard called every one of his designs a “DGA,” which he grinned and said stood for “Damn Good Airplane.”

Why Was Mister Mulligan Different From Other Racers?

While nearly everyone else built the Bendix racer as a slick, stripped-down single-seater, Benny Howard went the opposite direction. He built a high-wing cabin monoplane with real windows and room inside for four or five people - an airplane that looked like something you might buy to carry your family.

That was the entire point. Howard wanted to prove that a practical traveling machine could be the fastest thing across the continent. He designed Mister Mulligan to cruise for hours up high, where the air is thin and smooth and an airplane can really run.

Under the long cowling he hung a Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engine. The airplane was white with dark trim, tall on its gear, and looked friendly rather than lethal. Howard and Gordon Israel poured everything they had into it - money they didn’t have and nights they should have slept. It wasn’t ready for the 1934 races, so they aimed for 1935.

How Did One Airplane Win Both Trophies in 1935?

The 1935 Bendix launched from the West Coast in the dark, each racer departing individually against the clock. Howard and Israel pointed Mister Mulligan east and climbed for the high country - hours of flying, mostly at night, mostly up high in cold, thin air, with only a compass, a watch, and a chart on the knee.

It came down to the wire. Mister Mulligan and a Northrop flown by Roscoe Turner ran the full width of the country and finished within a couple of minutes of each other after thousands of miles. Howard and Israel won the 1935 Bendix Trophy - the cabin ship, the one that carried passengers, was the fastest across the entire country.

Then the same airplane was turned around for the Thompson. This time pilot Harold Neumann flew it. A big high-wing cabin monoplane is exactly the wrong shape for a pylon race - too much frontal area, too much weight - but it didn’t matter. Neumann threw Mister Mulligan around the pylons like one of Howard’s little sprinters, and won the Thompson Trophy too.

The same airplane, in the same year, won both the Bendix and the Thompson. No one had ever done it, and in all the years of the National Air Races, no one ever did it again.

What Happened to Mister Mulligan?

The golden age was never gentle. In 1936, Howard returned to defend the Bendix - this time flying with his wife, Maxine Howard, whom everyone called Mike. Over New Mexico, high and fast, the airplane suffered a propeller failure, the kind of event that instantly turns a smooth racer into a machine trying to shake itself apart.

There was no runway below - only rock and scrub. They went down hard near Crownpoint, New Mexico. Both were badly hurt; Benny Howard lost a leg, and Mike was gravely injured. Mister Mulligan, the only airplane ever to win both trophies in one year, was destroyed.

What Was Mister Mulligan’s Lasting Legacy?

Neither Howard nor Israel flamed out. Benny Howard came back and flew as a test pilot for Douglas in California, testing the airplanes that would change the world. Gordon Israel went on to a long career designing production aircraft.

More importantly, Mister Mulligan proved Howard’s core idea: that you don’t have to choose between useful and fast. That thinking grew directly into the Howard cabin monoplanes that followed - airplanes people actually bought and flew. When war came, the Navy adopted the civilian version as a light transport and flying ambulance, nicknamed the Nightingale. Some of those airplanes still fly at fly-ins today, and every one traces its bloodline back to a white racer named Mulligan.

The trophies were the headlines. The real legacy was the idea underneath - speed and comfort in the same airframe - which was radical in 1935 and is simply what we expect from any good cross-country airplane today.

Key Takeaways

• Mister Mulligan is the only airplane ever to win both the Bendix and Thompson trophies in the same year (1935) - a feat never repeated.
• It was a homebuilt high-wing cabin monoplane powered by a Pratt & Whitney Wasp, built in a garage by self-taught pilot Benny Howard (born 1904) and engineer Gordon Israel.
• Howard won the 1935 Bendix with Israel, beating Roscoe Turner’s Northrop by about two minutes; Harold Neumann then flew the same airplane to the Thompson win.
• The airplane was destroyed in a 1936 propeller-failure crash near Crownpoint, New Mexico, in which Howard lost a leg and his wife Maxine “Mike” Howard was gravely injured.
• Mister Mulligan’s design philosophy - combining speed with a practical cabin - led to the Howard cabin monoplanes and the Navy’s Nightingale, some of which still fly today.