Hawthorne Flying School (Beverly "Bevo" Howard) Collection

Scope and Contents

This collection contains material primarily relating to the Hawthorne Flying Schools. It consists of class books from the Air Force cadets that were trained at Hawthorne facilities in North and South Carolina, a scrapbook of the 1943-45 issues of Hawthorne Prop Wash, the company newsletter, and photos used in Prop Wash.

Biographical / Historical

Beverly "Bevo" Howard (1914-1971) was an aviation promoter and aerobatic pilot. He soloed in 1931 at age 16 and, in 1932, joined Hawthorne Aviation as a line boy. By 1936 he was the President of Hawthorne and joined Eastern Air Lines (1936-38), at 21 the youngest air line pilot in the United States. In the 1940s and 1950s the Hawthorne Aviation Schools trained approximately ten thousand pilots from thirty-two countries, including military pilots from the United States, France, and Pakistan. Best known as a stunt pilot, Howard was the first to perform an outside loop in a light aircraft (1938), succeeding in a 37 1/2 horse power Piper Cub. He won the National Lightplane Aerobatic Championship for three years in a row (1939, 1940, 1941) and the International Aerobatic Championship three times (all classes 1946, 1947, 1949; second place 1948, 1950). While flying at a show in Greenville, NC, on October 17, 1971, Howard had a fatal accident.