AviTech Reader

Today we are going back to 1935, a day when millionaire film producer and amateur air racer Howard Hughes shattered the world land plane speed record using his home built Hughes Racer(AYY) plane. His company, the Hughes Aircraft Company was formed in 1932 and has pioneered many Aerospace developments. Its origin was an attempt to convert a military plane to a racer.In 1933, he lobbied the Commerce Department to lower his pilot's license number from 4223 to 80 to get some fake status for his own benefit. Charles Lindbergh's number was 69. Surely, this guy never had areal job except for 1933 when he applied for a co-pilot position at American Airways  under the name Charles W. Howard. He got the job yes, just shortly after,the trick he used was discovered and he had to resign. One of his other achievements was that he entered and won the All-American Air Meet in 1934 in Miami, after which he built and test piloted the most advanced aircraft, the H-1 which he used in 1935 to set anew speed record of 352mph. He did much more of this speed records later on till in 1938 when he piloted a Lockheed 14 around the world from July 10th to July 14th in the company of four crew members.He halved Lindbergh’s New York to Paris speed record-he did it in 3 days, 19hours and 17 minutes. Lastly guess what…with all those achievements, Houston Airport being named after him was a great show of honor bestowed on Hughes.