Wooden window frame...use your imagination! - Mike Zoeller
All that's gold doesn't glitter...
A unique Howard Aero aircraft was the 'Eldorado 700'. This was the BA-400's
sister ship (c/n 5598) initially converted by Spartan it spent over 10 years
of its career with Republic Steel. It eventually came to Dee Howard Co.
and was, according to files held by the FAA, converted to a Howard 350.
However, at the same time (late 1966) Dee Howard produced a sales brochure
about this aircraft (perhaps implicating that more than one was to be converted)
calling it an 'Eldorado 700'. Designed in co-operation with Draker Woltersdorf,
the plane was advertised as a design ideal where the designers were alowed
to do just what ever they wanted the result was an elegant aircraft with
long tapering wings, an almost Concorde-like pointed nose, cleaned up engine
cowlings and huge picture windows on either side of the fuselage. The
interior was finished to the highest quality with the latest and best
materials used. Undoubtedly the most unusual feature of the 700 was it's
laminated wooden window frames.....on the outside
of the aircraft. Sadly the aircraft was written off at Philadelphia in late
1971.
The lone Howard 700: C/n Reg Date of conv. Notes 5598 N30606 11.66 a)