Maiden Flight of the 'Spruce Goose'

'The rich’, so the saying goes, ‘are not like us'. If this is true of anyone it is true of Howard Hughes, billionaire businessman and one of the twentieth century's most elusive personalities. But picking through Hughes' tangled love life, his films, fantastic wealth, and his descent into madness one abiding passion emerges. Not Katherine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers or any of the other women Hughes was involved with: flying was Hughes' love, reaching its apotheoses on this day fifty years ago with the maiden - and only - flight of the ‘Spruce Goose', the largest sea plane ever built.