Hughes, Riding Gale, Sets Record Of 7 1/2 Hours in Flight From Coast

All landplane distance speed records were broken yesterday by Howard Hughes, millionaire sportsman pilot, who reached Newark Airport 7 hours 28 minutes and 25 seconds after he took off from Los Angeles, Calif. He was then forced to stay aloft until the runway at the field was clear and landed at 1:03 P. M. His average speed was 332 miles an hour for the 2,490 miles he traveled.

Grimy from the smoke of his exhaust stacks the lanky pilot climbed out of his cramped cockpit and grinned. In recounting his experiences on the flight he said that the skies were overcast all the way and he had to fly on top of the clouds. He saw the ground only twice west of the Ohio Valley, once at Winslow, Ariz. and again as he roared across the Mississippi River.

It was 2:14 o'clock in the morning and pitch dark when opened the throttle at the Union Air Depot at Burbank and released the 1,100 horsepower sealed in the fourteen cylinders of his supercharged Twin Row Wasp engine. The sleek gray and blue low-winged monoplane, designed and built under his own direction, staggered, accelerated and then literally vaulted into the air. Within a few seconds Hughes climbed into low-hanging clouds swung eastward and headed for the San Bernardino Pass.

At 14,000 feet, at which altitude he flew most of the way, he passed over the clouds, set his course and leveled off. He throttled his engine back until it was delivering only 375 horsepower and hunched himself over his instrument panel.

He was wearing a new type oxygen mask for high altitude flying. With nothing to see except the top of the cloud stratum he began experimenting with it. He finally adjusted it so that it fed too much air and not enough oxygen and he began to feel faint. Over the Sierras he had fears for a moment that his attempt might not be a success, but at last re-adjusted the mask so that the gas revived him.

In what seemed to him an incredibly short time he caught a glimpse of Winslow, Ariz., through a hole in the clouds. He had plotted his course out through the pass, over Arrowhead Lake and Needles and was anxiously seeking a landmark to check it. During his faintness he had screamed to equalize the pressure from within his head and the rarified air outside and was beginning to feel better. His check on the course at Winslow further heartened him and he knew he was picking up a full gale on the tail of the ship.

That gale carried him with the speed of a rifle bullet all the way to Ohio. He had not been able to recalibrate his radio to pick up the recently rearranged airline radio beams and kept on coming through by dead reckoning. He is not yet sure at just what point he flicked across the Mississippi, but figures it was just north of St. Louis. He was unreported by ground stations all the way, as he had no radio transmitter and could not let airports know his progress.

More Breaks in Clouds

The holes in the clouds became more numerous as his racer reached out for the miles to the Alleghanies. When he rechecked near Indianapolis he found that his tailwind was veering off into the southwest quadrant and had to crab the ship at a twenty-degree angle for the balance of the flight. When he crossed high above the army field at Middletown, Pa., near Harrisburg, he depressed the nose of the plane and started his long glide down to Newark. The plane, built to withstand stress up to 550 miles an hour, reached 380 on the long power dive.

His arrival at Newark was unheralded and a surprise. It had been thought that he was going to land at Chicago. The new United Air Lines extra-fare plane was loaded for its initial run and already had its door locked when the propeller whir of the hurling racer apparently made the buildings tremble from sound vibration as Hughes swept low across the field. William Zint of the Longines Watch Company, official timer for the National Aeronautic Association, noted the time. It was exactly 42 minutes and 25 seconds after noon.

Hughes then pulled up in a sweeping chandelle maneuver and circled. The United Air Liner was already on the runway when Hughes swung back toward the field and lowered the flaps on his wing to slacken speed for landing. The wing carries a greater load square foot than any other plane heretofore except the Schneider Trophy racers of Italy and England, thirty-seven pounds in the case of Hughes's ship, and the plane settled fast toward the earth. Still the pilot had no signal from the control tower where the dispatchers act as traffic patrols at the busiest airport in the world. Hughes had to open his throttle again and cruise around the field for some time before the green light at last came on. The United plane was then well on its course toward Chicago. Hughes's plane slid in over the airport boundary, dropped its retractable undercarriage and tail wheel and touched both wheels and tail wheel in a perfect three-point landing at 1:02:30 P. M.

He minimized his achievement. He said that he did not know he was to make the flight until a few hours before he started but that he heard somebody was going out to lower his previous record of 9 hours 26 minutes and 10 seconds. He decided to wheel out the ship and give them something better than that mark to shoot at, he said. Mechanics had been at work through the night grooming the plane, the winds were perfect for a west-east flight and he got off as soon as possible.

Set Speed Mark With Plane

The plane is the same one in which Hughes established the world speed record of 352 miles an hour at Santa Ana, Calif., but has been cleaned up in its streamlining since then and has a new motor. Although its wing loading of thirty-seven pounds is very high its power-load of seven pounds per horsepower is very low and it is practically a "flying engine."

For navigating equipment he uses a gyro compass, a Sperry artificial horizon and the usual blind flying instruments. The ship fitted for an automatic pilot but up until now it has not been installed, so the pilot had to fly it manually all the way yesterday. The landing speed of the plane is just under eighty miles an hour with flaps down but its extremely high undercarriage, which folds underside of the low wing, gives the wing a high angle of attack as the ship lands and it slows up fast. The height of the landing gear also serves to prevent nosing over.

Hughes will be in New York for some time. He will officiate with Mayor La Guardia at the opening of the National Aviation Show on Jan. 28 at Grand Central Palace. He denied reports that he was in any danger during the flight but added that his oxygen ran out over Indiana and that he came on through at the high altitude without it.