Howard Hughes was a scientist, an inventor, a daredevil, a test pilot, and a movie producer. His biggest joy was flying because it took him outside and beyond the ordinary range of his everyday life.

He was born on Christmas Eve 1905, the only child of Howard and Allene Hughes. His education began at Fessenden Academy, a prestigious prep school outside of Boston.

During one of his father's weekend visits to Fessenden Howard talked his dad in taking him to a New England river to buy a ticket for a brief flight on a seaplane. It was at this point that flight became the all-consuming passion that would change Howard's life, and the very course of aviation.

Howard was later accepted as an unaccredited student at the California Institute of Technology where he spent three days a week at flight school. By the age of seventeen the two great interests in Howard's life were movies and aviation.

Hughes made his very first movie, Swell Hogan, in the mid 1920's. It cost him $80,000 and was never released. His next two films, Everybody's Acting, and Two Arabian Knights fared extremely well.

The Fall of 1927 found Howard taking flying lessons. He augmented this with personal study of newsreels depicting WWI aerial battles, Defense Department photos of warplanes, and seemingly countless books on aviation.

After viewing the silent film Wings Hughes decided he could do better and that he would make the ultimate air epic. He planned to do this with his own planes and without the help of any of the major studios, estimating that his epic would cost him around two million dollars of his own money. At the start of shooting in January of 1928, Howard's private air force, some fifty war planes from four different countries, were assembled at Mines Field in Inglewood California. It took two hours just for all the planes to take off. It was during the filming of Hell's Angels that Hughes developed methods of filming airplanes in flight that made them appear they were moving about on the screen.

A year later, having so far spent over two million dollars shooting Hells Angels Howard realized he'd made a mistake in not taking seriously the demise of silent pictures and that his film would need to be done over for sound. Based on his experience up until that time with Hells Angels he estimated this remake would probably cost another two million dollars.

By the time filming had wrapped on Hells Angels three aviators had lost their lives. Eight different filming locations had been used with some places seeing the pilots holed up for weeks before the cloud formations there were up to Howard's standards. The resulting twenty-five miles of film represented well over five hundred hours of footage and the extensive cutting required four editors.

The film received rave reviews with the aerial sequences remaining unequalled to this day. Audiences and critics alike were taken by Jean Harlow. For Hughes Hells Angels would become the cornerstone of what he envisioned to be a new film empire and by that winter he would have five motion pictures in various stages of development.

In the Spring of 1932 Howard founded Hughes Aircraft Company. By now occasionally taking to disappearing for unpredictable periods of time, without telling anyone about it, in September of 1932 he lined up with other job seekers at American Airlines in Fort Worth and under an assumed identity gained employment as a baggage handler. He took to sitting in the co-pilot's seat on his own time to gain additional knowledge about flying. Completely at ease within the cockpits of various planes his interest in flying and his naturalness at being part of a flight crew did not go unnoticed and he advanced rapidly. Within weeks his identity was discovered which was about the time he took his first flight as transcontinental co-pilot. When that flight arrived in New York Howard posed for pictures which his own publicist distributed indicating that Hughes was gathering data and observing atmosphere for his next picture.

In 1932, after Hughes had flown nearly every type of plane in existence he then decided to build a family of planes that would revolutionize aviation. He also wanted to build the fastest airplane in the world. He assembled a team of scientist, engineers, and mechanics who built a plane that was subsequently tested in the wind tunnels at the California Institute of Technology. The plane, to be later known as the Silver Bullet, surpassed all the Cal Tech speed records held at that time. When completed it would cost well over a hundred thousand dollars. It was unveiled in August of 1935.

Hughes actually flew the plane on it's maiden flight in September that year. Amelia Earhart was in one of the planes that followed the Silver Bullet into the air that day. After the Silver Bullet reached speeds of 355 miles per hour the aircraft ran into trouble and Hughes crash landed the plane in a Santa Ana field. Later when the plane was carefully checked it was found to have been sabotaged. It was never discovered who was responsible. Later that year Hughes would prove, in a series of death-defying flights over the Sierra Nevadas, that high-altitude flying greatly increased air speed.

In January the following year Hughes flew from California to New Jersey in seven and a half hours. He had flown at 20,000 feet, higher than anyone had flown before. This flight, in his plane with recessed rivets and retractable landing gear (which Hughes himself had developed in 1934), paved the way for commercial aviation.

In 1936 Hughes would design and perfect an oxygen feeder system that enhanced pilot safety during high-altitude flights.

In the Winter of 1937 - 1938 Howard prepared for a flight around the world. He encountered problems getting approval from the Air Commerce Bureau for this flight in addition to which Adolf Hitler refused to let him fly over Nazi Germany. By June of 1938 things were getting sorted. His friend Amelia Earhart had disappeared during her flight the prior summer so Hughes made some adjustments to his will.

In July Howard flew his Lockheed Lodestar from Long Island's Floyd Bennett Field. The flight was completed three days and nineteen hours later. By the time the plane had coasted back to Long Island at the end of its flight it had flown nearly 15,000 miles.

In 1939 Howard perfected power-booster radio receivers and transmitters for the aircraft of the day. Also that year Howard bought the airline that had been founded by Charles Lindbergh, Trans World Airlines. He would quickly transform TWA from a small mail carrier to one of the world's great international airlines. Hughes doubled TWA's income by 1940. By 1941 it was carrying more than double the passengers that it had in 1939.

By this time Hughes had invented power steering, created hydraulics that were ahead of their time, and had introduced the concept of larger safer cockpits. Interested in upgrading his TWA fleet he envisaged planes that would carry sixty passengers from the West Coast to the East Coast in ten hours. His planes would fly passengers at three hundred miles per hour in unheard-of comfort. Although he scoured the airline industry looking for designers to build these planes only Lockheed President Robert Gross promised to turn Hughes' dreams into reality. Blueprints were displayed to Hughes and he purchased forty airplanes for eighteen million dollars which at that time was the largest commercial order in aviation history. As TWA wasn't able to foot this bill Howard instructed Gross to send the bill for the planes to Hughes Tool Company in Houston.

In 1941 Hughes Aircraft started out as a four man team. Within a few short years Hughes aviation team would number five hundred. They were installed in a new thirteen hundred acre facility in Culver City where he'd built an air conditioned, humidity controlled plant that became the envy of the aviation industry.

Having gotten Trans World Airlines on its way Howard's interest returned to movie making. Just like Gone With The Wind had created a stir before its release Howard wanted to create a Western that would have moviegoers talking about it before the characters ever saddled up. Initially called Billy The Kid, Howard was determined this would be a Western that exuded sex.

The quest for a leading lady wouldn't rival the Scarlett O'Hara campaign but because Hughes had discovered Jean Harlow fifteen years prior there was a furore among the town's casting agents. Jane Russell was eventually chosen for the role. During filming, by the time Howard commented aloud that "We're not getting enough production out of Jane's breasts," it was clear to everyone on the set that Russell's breasts were to become stars in their own right. This led to Howard's now-famous design (sketched by Howard himself with pencil on drawing board) for Jane Russell's brassiere. It was constructed to restrict the movement of her breasts and maintain their natural appearance while they were shooting the scene where she was tied to a tree.

Having cut only what was required for the film to gain the seal of approval the film was finally released after two years of fighting with the censors. Re-named The Outlaw, film critics were harsh and cruel in their reviews. Conversely the film was extremely well received by the public and widely considered to be the film that couldn't be stopped. The Outlaw was in it's eighth record-breaking week of release when Howard suddenly pulled it from distribution. It would be three years before he would release it again.

Shortly after the United States entered World War II Hughes Aircraft would become the largest source of weapons machinery for the war.

Hughes spent 1941 - 1943 developing revolutionary ammunition feed chutes for fifty-caliber machine guns, an improvement which doubled their rate of fire.

In April 1943 Hughes tested the Sikorsky amphibian plane which with twenty design modifications and over four thousand tests he had honed into aviation's finest water plane. In spite of the fact that conditions for flying that day were ideal, that day's test flight went horribly wrong. The plane crashed into Lake Mead drowning one of the pilots within minutes. Four others, including Hughes, were injured - one of whom would die later of his injuries. Hughes was urged to go to the hospital for treatment but because his eccentricity had become noticeable by this time he was concerned that if he went to a hospital, "They'll put me in a locked ward," so he declined.

The cause of the crash was due to necessary ballast not being put into the tail of the plane, and then Howard's not performing his never-fail top to toe check of the plane's inventory before the flight. In addition to the crash being a huge psychological blow for Hughes he'd also suffered his seventh major head injury, this time refusing X-rays or treatment. The investigating CAA commission whitewashed the incident because Hughes was a major wartime supplier.

The end of World War II saw the collapse of his government contracts. Washington pulled the plug on his wooden plane, the Spruce Goose. Hughes was feeling defeated professionally.

Starting in 1946, by now the principal shareholder in TWA, Hughes designed the first cost-effective routes to Europe and the South Pacific.

In the Spring of 1946 The Outlaw was re-released with the sex angle of the film being heavily exploited. The censors, enraged over the advertising campaign, removed the film's seal of approval. Howard filed a suit against the Motion Picture Association while at the same time releasing the film to theatres that would show it without approval.

In Los Angeles a hundred thousand admissions were sold in the first week. In Atlanta the first week's ticket sales exceeded even those of Gone With The Wind. In Chicago The Outlaw surpassed the Oriental Theatre's previous record holder. Hughes' refusal to give in to the censors would have future repercussions on the way films were censored in the United States.

That July Howard was to test the XF-11 spy plane which was the largest plane built up until that time. Intending to fly the plane for two hours rather than the recommended forty-five minutes he overloaded it with fuel. He was also supposed to test it over the California desert but chose to fly over Los Angeles' West Side. An hour and forty-five minutes into the flight the plane experienced problems. Hughes' original intention was to return to Culver City, then when it was clear the plane would crash he tried for the Los Angeles Country Club. In the end the best he could do was to aim the plane between the houses coming up at him on Linden Drive.

He sustained so many burns and injuries from the crash that several times he almost died while in hospital. Newspaper reporters readied Hughes' obituaries. His condition repeatedly fluctuated from improvements to remissions. Although Hughes resisted taking the drugs required for pain he was on his way to a life-long, secret drug addiction.

In hindsight Hughes was able to determine that the rear propellers on the right engine of the XF-11 had reversed. The Army's official board of inquiry blamed the crash on pilot error. Disturbingly to Hughes his own men agreed with this verdict, concluding, "If he had cut the power he would have been okay." In April 1947 he would climb back into the cockpit of an XF-11 for a successful test flight.

Later that year Hughes would be investigated, ostensibly, over alleged financial irregularities involving the XF-11 and the Spruce Goose. The hidden agenda behind the allegations originated from the executive suite of Pan American Airways who were frantic to hold on to their monopoly over routes over the North Atlantic to Europe, routes recently won by TWA. The hearings took place early in August, and were adjourned three weeks early when it was clear that Hughes had won.

In October 1947 Hughes flew the Spruce Goose in a surprise test flight. The plane rose to seventy feet and traveled for about a mile in a journey that lasted less than a minute. This would be the only time it would ever be flown.

In 1949 Howard developed the all weather interceptor which was an electronic weapons control system. It was made up of a computer into which a radar set had been integrated. It worked day or night and in any weather.

From the mid '40's and well into the '50's Hughes Aircraft would become the largest supplier of electronic products to the Air Force. By 1956 Hughes Aviation had become an eighty-thousand-employee powerhouse that included Hughes Electronics and Hughes Helicopters. Hughes Aircraft was responsible for developing over three thousand Ph.D.'s

From 1950 - 1956 He conceived and manufactured the air-to-air missile. This missile was considered to be the most important contribution to the defense of the United States since radar.

In the 1960's Hughes would pioneer and produce unmanned satellite prototypes which cleared the way for the onset of today's satellite era. For the Apollo 13 launch Hughes Aircraft's contribution was the lunar observer which sent messages to Earth from the moon's surface.

On December 14, 1973, Howard Hughes was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. Officials hoped that he would show up to accept the honor but he instead sent Ed Lund, the only other surviving member of Hughes' 1938 around-the-world flight.

At the time of Hughes' death his empire pulled in $75,000 per hour, he had completely re-designed passenger airliners & commercial flights into the airline industry we're familiar with today, he owned several of the most luxurious Las Vegas gambling casinos, and satellites he had manufactured orbited the Earth & beamed television from the United States to other countries.

At 6:00 a.m. on the Morning of April 5, 1976, the last doctor to examine Hughes in his hotel room in Acapulco found him unconscious and suffering from dehydration, malnutrition, kidney failure, and severe shock. This was the examination that prompted Hughes flight back to the United States.

There are conflicting reports as to whether Hughes had died in Mexico or in the air on the way to the United States. The Mexican Attorney General's office reported that Hughes died no later than 10:00 a.m. and probably earlier. The doctor accompanying Howard in the plane reported at 1:27 p.m. that he no longer heard a heartbeat so the legally accepted opinion is that he had died in the air over Texas as the plane approached Houston. It was determined at the autopsy that Hughes had died from a single, lethal injection of codeine. He had been given this injection after he had already been unconscious for over 24 hours at a time this injection would have had no therapeutic value. Howard's heart had stopped eight hours after the injection was administered. There was evidence that Hughes had been mistreated, neglected, and was the victim of poor medical treatment. His body was found to have in it the highest clinical level of codeine poisoning ever recorded up until that time. Also evident were the signs of brain degeneration resulting from tertiary syphilis. There were healed fractures, scarring, and other evidence of the fourteen auto and airplane crashes Howard had incurred during his lifetime. Notwithstanding any of this the general opinion of the autopsy was that, except for the lethal codeine injection, there was no need for Hughes to have died at that time.

Howard Hughes was buried on April 7 in the family plot at Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas. Howard's last known wish was that he be remembered for his contributions to aviation.

On Hughes' death he left behind a stunning medical bequest. Although initially created as a tax dodge, by the mid-'90's the Howard Hughes Medical Institute was the United States' largest private sponsor of biomedical research. This was due to the will that Hughes had drafted at 25 years of age which designated the bulk of his fortune for medical research. A more recent will was never found.

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While gathering information on Howard Hughes I discovered there's not a great deal of factual information written about him. For a time I was unable to find out more than a few paragraphs about Hughes until one day I was in a book store and discovered a copy of Howard Hughes: The Untold Story. This book was published in 1996 by Time Warner Book Group UK. It was copyrighted in 1996 by Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske. It's been re-printed several times since 1996.

Peter Harry Brown is a journalist and the author of the bestselling book Marilyn: The Last Take. He lives in California. Pat H. Broeske is a veteran entertainment reporter who writes for Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She too lives in California.

The Untold Story has doubtless been exhaustively researched and I believe it likely that it took several years for Brown and Broeske to get it ready for print. I recommend you buy a copy of The Untold Story. You'll find it excellent reading from which you'll gain a thorough insight into the person that was Howard Hughes.

Some ninety-five percent of the above content originated from The Untold Story.