Saddle Soar

When dark, lanky, impetuous Howard Hughes set a world's landplane speed record of 352 m.p.h. in a plane built by his own company, it became apparent that he had, besides a genius for movies and money, the finest racer in the U. S. (TIME, Sept. 23, 1935). When he set a new transcontinental record of 9 hr., 26 min. in a standard Northrop "Gamma," it became equally apparent that he was a top-notch pilot (TIME, Jan. 27, 1936). Last week, when he got around to combining these two superlatives, the result was precisely what might have been expected--he made the world's greatest long-distance speed flight, set a new transcontinental record of 7 hr., 28 min., 25 sec. What set secretive Flyer Hughes in motion again was a rumor that someone was about to take a crack at his transcontinental record. Hustling out to Burbank from his home in Los Angeles after midnight, he rolled out his world-record racer, recently re-streamlined and given a 1,100-h.p. Twin Wasp Jr. so powerful that mechanics called the plane "a big engine with a saddle." At 2:14 a. m. he climbed into the "saddle," said he might land at Chicago, leaped into the dark. null his big motor thundering, he bored up through the heavy overcast to 20,000 ft., pulled on an oxygen mask, set off across the U.

S. by dead reckoning on the crest of a 60-m.p.h. gale. In the four hours it took him to reach the Mississippi somewhere near St. Louis, three events broke the monotony of his 375-m.p.h. speed--two glimpses of land through the clouds, a brief flurry when his mask went askew. Not until he saw the long furrows of the Alleghenies did Flyer Hughes slant down in a long power dive to Newark. There, no one was aware of his coming until the crescendoing whine of his racing engine jerked heads aloft. Like an angry dragonfly, the little ship buzzed across the field, spiraled up in a chandelle. In the control tower an official timer clicked his watch. After circling a while to let a transport take off, at 1103 p. m. tired Racer Hughes alighted, ran to a telegraph office and sent a wire to Cinemactress Katharine Hepburn, awaiting him in Chicago: "Safe and down in Newark." Next day he popped up in Chicago with Miss Hepburn. Crowds collected at the Marriage License Bureau, but the pair remained in their hotel. Said her agent: "Miss Hepburn will not marry Mr. Hughes in Chicago today."

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