Westchester Breezeway Exhibit – Panel 8

Howard Hughes Company

Circa late 1930s, Howard Hughes moved the Hughes Aircraft Company to the 1200 acres just beneath the Westchester Bluffs. In 1935, Hughes had established the world’s landplane speed record in an aircraft of his own design. In 1938, flying a Lockheed 14, he circled the Earth in a record 91 hours and 14 minutes. In 1943, Hughes constructed the hanger, still standing, occupied, and preserved today by Google in Playa Vista, which was then to become the home of the Hughes H-4 Hercules, a.k.a. Spruce Goose, produced by Hughes Aircraft Company in 1943, the largest flying boat in history.