USA, USA
Many remember Howard Hughes in the last years of his life, when his mind had faded and he lived the life of a wealthy paranoid recluse. Earlier in his life, Hughes was a dashing and innovative businessman who had inherited the Hughes Tool Company when he was 19. Thereafter, Hughes became a Hollywood movie producer, aircraft inventor, mining mogul, casino owner and ladies' man.
Howard Hughes was an avid and daring pilot setting a handful of aviation world records, including one for his 1938 flight round-the-world in just over 91 hours. Hughes with his flight crew of Harry Connor (co-pilot), Thomas Thurlow (navigator), Edward Lund (flight engineer), and Richard Stoddard (radio operator) made this noteworthy flight. They were assisted by Al Lodwick, vice president of Curtis-Wright who handled flight operation & clearances, landing permits and enroute fuel provisioning. On July 10, 1938 Hughes and crew departed Floyd Bennett Field, Long Island New York and flew round-the-world in a Lockheed 14 Lodestar Monoplane with the primary sponsoring of the New York World's Fair for which Hughes was an aeronautical advisor.
They were guided by the most reassuring set of flying gadgets ever packed into a private airplane including a homing radio compass to keep them on course by taking bearings from ships at sea, a new periscopic drift indicator, a gyro-pilot which did most of the flying and a powerful radio transmitter which radio linked them to a towering trylon antenna at the New York World's Fair. The purpose of the Hughes' round-the-world flight was for publicity to bid foreigners to come to visit the New York World's Fair.
On July 14, 1938 Howard Hughes and his four-man crew returned to New York after circling the globe covering 14,672 miles in three days, nineteen hours, fourteen minutes and ten seconds. They were treated to a special Mayorial reception and ticker-tape parade in New York City. Hughes died in 1976 while a passenger of a flight from Los Angeles to Houston.
After the flight, Hughes said in a prepared statement,
"There is one thing about this flight that I would like everyone to know. It was in no way a stunt. It was the carrying out of a careful plan."......
"If any credit is due anyone, it is the men who designed and perfected, to its remarkable state of efficiency, the modern American flying machine and equipment." ......
All we did was operate this equipment and the plane according to the instruction book....."
Ссылка на источник: http://www.wingnet.org/rtw/RTW002Q.HTM
