The Little Red Airplane That Created a Legacy

All in the Family

My father, Capt. Walter Howard (Northwest, Ret.), grew up on a farm in southern Wisconsin and always looked to the sky, dreaming of becoming a pilot. As a young boy, he saved his earnings to buy airplane rides from barnstormers.

Many years later, after serving in World War II, he married his childhood sweetheart, Dorothy, and they raised four children.

After the war, my dad went on to earn his Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) license and became a mechanic for Northwest Airlines in 1950 while pursuing flight training. In 1952 while working at Northwest, he noticed an open chair in a pilot new-hire class and sat in. Due to his training and license, he was allowed to remain and join the class. He subsequently became a DC-3 copilot, then progressed to the DC-4, DC-6, and DC-7. He first flew as a captain in 1966 on a Lockheed L-188 Electra, then went on to fly the B-727, B-707-320, DC-10, and B-747. He retired on the B-747 in 1982.

I expressed an interest in flying while in college, so my father bought a Cessna 170 on floats. I flew during the summer of my junior year, logging 70 hours of float time before transitioning to wheels on that aircraft. I had accumulated enough flight time that I bypassed the private license and completed the commercial license.

During the summer of 1970, my dad replaced the Cessna 170 with the airplane that would create a family legacy: a little red 1946 Taylorcraft BC-12-D. Clarence Taylor designed the plane after leaving Piper Aircraft, looking to make a faster aircraft. The technology on that airplane—which was nearly 25 years old when my father bought it—included a 65-horsepower engine and conventional gear but lacked an electrical system, starter, and radio. Therefore, navigation was done by pilotage—as this was before iPads and even handheld radios.

The fuel system was two wing-mounted eight-gallon tanks, drainable to a center 14-gallon tank; fuel quantity indication was a floatable cork and wire, visible outside the windshield. The rudimentary panel consisted of a liquid magnetic compass; airspeed; RPM; needle and ball; and oil, temperature, and pressure gauges.

I helped my dad rebuild the “T-craft” by restoring its frame, replacing the fabric, upgrading to an 85-horsepower engine, installing floats, and adding a skylight for extra headroom. This made for many enjoyable flights to northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Canada.

After college, I became an assistant dispatcher with North Central Airlines in 1970. In 1974, I began flying for Skyway Airlines in central Missouri to gain additional hours, piloting Beechcraft 18s and 99s. With that additional experience, I was subsequently rehired—this time as a pilot—by North Central in 1976, flying the Convair 580, DC-9, and MD-80 as an instructor and check pilot. On the Convair, I met my future wife, Suzanne, a flight attendant.

Following a merger with Southern Airways in 1979, North Central became Republic Airlines, which then merged with Northwest in 1986, which later merged with Delta Air Lines in 2008. After the Northwest-Republic merger, I flew the B-757 and B-767—retiring from Delta in 2010 with more than 36 years of flying experience. With all those mergers over my 36 years, I tell people that I flew for four different airlines without once changing jobs!

My brother, Capt. Todd Howard (Delta), also fell under the little red airplane’s spell. He began flying in 1976 and flew many hours in the Taylorcraft, squeezing his lanky frame into the small space. And just as I did, he took many enjoyable flights to Canada. Todd began his airline career in 1987 with Merlin Express and then Pan Am Express in Berlin, Germany, during the time the Wall came down.

After the shutdown of Pan Am Express in 1991, he next flew as a captain with TWA Express and then with Mahalo Air as captain and manager of Flight Standards and Training. Todd then moved on to World Airways, flying the MD-11 before following my father and me to Northwest in 1995.

Todd has flown as a captain on the DC-9, A320, B-757; as a type-rated first officer on the B-747 and B-777; and is currently a captain on the A330. He’ll retire from Delta on the A330 this July after a nearly 40-year career. Unfortunately, due to the difference in our seniority and not operating the same aircraft, I was never able to fly with my brother.

He and his wife, Claudia, have two young children who’ve been exposed to aviation in his Cessna 185 floatplane, and they’ve expressed an interest in flying.

After my dad retired from Northwest in 1982, he moved to River Falls, Wisc., and the little red aircraft went with him. He built an airstrip on the property and flew the T-craft, Cessna 175, and amphibious Cessna 182. My two children were both introduced to aviation at an early age in their grandpa’s Taylorcraft on that rural property, with one of them, Chad, taking an interest in flying. Always excited to ride in the little red plane, and needing to sit on pillows to see out, Chad’s desire to fly was cultivated by his grandpa and those airplane rides.

In 2004, Chad began flight lessons at the local airport in Lakeville, Minn., and continued flying throughout college. He worked the Northwest ramp prior to his sophomore year and interned as a junior in the B-757 program. Chad began flying for Mesaba in 2008, then moved to Silver Airways in 2011 as a captain, feeding United Airlines out of West Virginia.

He next flew for Sun Country Airlines in 2013 before joining his uncle at Delta in 2016. They flew together multiple times before Chad upgraded to captain. Since 2022, he’s been a captain on the B-737 and is currently based in Minneapolis, Minn. He and his wife, Cassie, have four young children who also look to the sky, potentially continuing the family legacy.

That little red T-craft was enjoyed for decades by the Howard family, creating many wonderful memories, with three careers taking off from its wings—all supported by my dad and his love of flying.

My brother Todd and I spent many hours working on and flying that plane on trips, both with our father and on our own, and it started us both off on our long and fulfilling careers. Although my dad sold the Taylorcraft prior to Chad beginning flight training and he never piloted it himself, it was one of the early inspirations that set him on his career path—and Chad still fondly remembers those flights.

It was a remarkable little airplane that helped create a legacy of pilots in our family.