Howard Hughes Hells Angel: Americas Notorious Bisexual Billionaire by Darwin Porter

Author:Darwin Porter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Burbank, 1938

In Burbank, Howard nervously but meticulously made the final preparations for his around-the-world flight. He and Glenn Odekirk were convinced that his mechanics had created the best possible plane for the mission: a low-wing, sleek silver monoplane, a Lockheed Lodestar, capable of carrying 12 passengers. It had taken two years to prepare the plane for flight. Its pair of 1,200 horsepower Wright engines were the best that money could buy. Weighing close to thirteen tons, it required specially commissioned tires to ensure its ability to land safely. The plane carried 150 gallons of oil and 1,500 gallons of aviation fuel.

Howard had tried to foresee any emergency. He’d equipped it with a pair of high-powered rifles which he might need to fight off bears if the plane was forced to land in the rugged mountains of Siberia. A device had been installed to convert salt water to fresh. Some eighty pounds of Ping Pong balls had been stuffed into the hollow recesses of the wings and fuselage to provide temporary flotation in case the Lockheed, a land plane, was forced to land on water.

Glenn, who had been working night and day for months, had lost 35 pounds. He was far too weak and exhausted to endure a strenuous trip of some 15,000 miles, so Howard found a replacement for him.

For his crew, Howard selected the best technicians in America. Richard Stoddart, age 38, signed on as communications expert. He was a former shipboard radio operator and communications engineer from the National Broadcasting Company. For his co-pilot, Howard hired a skilled navigator, Harry P. McLean Connor, who had flown as co-pilot aboard Captain Erroll Boyd’s historic 1930 flight from Montréal to London. At the age of 39, he was the oldest crew member aboard. Also among the team members was Lieutenant Thomas Thurlow, a 33-year-old member of the U.S. Army Air Corps, and an aerial navigator noted for his innovations at Wright Field. Finally, Edward Lund, aged 32, came aboard as Howard’s air crew mechanic.

Clearly, he was Howard’s favorite. Howard called him “my fellow Westerner,” since Ed was born in Montana. He’d proven his skill by working on Howard’s Sikorsky and DC-1. There was another reason for hiring him. He was as tall as Howard and bore a physical resemblance to his boss, with his bushy eyebrows and piercing dark eyes. Even their lips and ears resembled each other. If not look-alikes, Ed and Howard could clearly have been brothers. Howard planned to use Ed as a decoy. It was agreed in advance that at refueling stops during the flight, Ed, wearing Howard’s typical clothing, including his signature Fedora, would get off the plane first. With his hat pulled down over his face, he’d distract the crowds, allowing Howard to slip undetected out of the cockpit and into the privacy of a hangar.

WC. Rockefeller, a meteorologist, was a member of Howard’s ground crew based in New York. His mission involved the creation and the supervision of a 24-hour weather forecast center

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