Hi Ward!

 WD> Was that TWA or the Yellow Banana?

Without looking back through all the stuff at the 1:117/3000 remote site,
it's my memory that it was neither of them!  It was in a rented DH125 they
brought in from England or something like that!

> So he could more intimately feel the effects of it and address the
> gravity of the situation!

 WD> The gravity of the situation or "his" situation? ;-)

The creativity of the above line was mine in this case.  I meant both of
them in humor here.  You properly interpreted my thoughts!  ;-)

It sure wasn't the Spruce Goose, wink!


Way back all those years ago when I was flying our company Beech Baron,
that company was in the modular housing business, an outfit called Hanover
Modular Homes -- and eventually it morphed into an International Shelters
corporate mess.  Late in 1968 when I was the IP out at Easterwood Airport,
a brand new N7826R Barron showed up in the prized hanger position next to
the doorway, but it never went anywhere!  The guy they had flying it had
10,000 hours, an ex-navy pilot who was fished out of the water after the
last flight off the Midway which he led a flight of six patrol planes.  He
lost all five of his buddies in a horrific squall line during that flight. 
When he got back to the Midway, it wasn't.  Spend two days beating sharks
off in his life jacket floating in the drink until he got picked up.

His name was Richard Harris.  Turns out that he actually has a far bigger
aviation history for you than just this.  If you've ever seen the couple of
old World War II movies where the Navy S2 hits the deck of a carrier, skids
on it and slams into the conning tower and bursts into flames, that is
*NOT* stage work.  It is actual footage.  Dick was the pilot of that plane,
his gunner dead from the Japanese attack on him, he lost the rest of the
crew of the S2 in the fire, but he survived.  Paid his $1.50 for the loss
of the plane and then was re-assigned to the Midway.

I traded my multi-engine certificate with Houston Beechcraft for time
toward his flight training toward his civilian rating - which he never
would take the written!  Unhappy with Texas weather and whatever,twenty-one
hours into the 'training' burn he handed me the keys to the new Beech Baron
and gave it to me!  In the strange seance of a deal that followed, I wound
up flying for this corporate monstrosity .. then got promoted and promoted
until total disaster set in.

The principal of that outfit, his boss, had placed a single quarter page ad
in the Wall Street Journal hawking a $100,000 franchise for owning your own
patented process Hanover Modular Homes plant - build houses for $8.92 a
square foot.  I didn't know it at the time, but that single week's ad
brought in over 14,750 replies!  And I spent the next three years flying
everyone and their whatever's all over in the mess.

The Howard Hughes part of this came from the fact that he bought the
airline as only a part of a far larger plot!  The intent was to use it to
attract European visitors to the Carribean on vacation.  And to take over
the housing and complete tourist trade there via this channeling! The early
part of the conversations with him started when he was still in the
penthouse in Nevada.  I never personally spoke with him there, but did make
a number of repeat phone calls sort of as a 'secretary' for the boss, Dr.
Ruble Langston, who did. Somewhere in my notebooks is still the actual
phone number for the crew there in the penthouse, the LDS group which
fronted him and kept him alive through blood donations and whatever.

Huges sent Jinks Caldwell and the then Prime Minister of Jamaica to tour
the housing plants, among other people, who I wound up flying hither and
yon in the Barron.  I'm not actually sure who all was part of this Hughes
foray into 'us' for sure, but the names are all in my flight logs still
intact from it; whatever.  Then came the news to me that my boss and his
wife were to go to visit Hughes in the Carribean to seal the deal wherein
he would make his investment in us .. as well as start a string of new
manufacturing plants in the islands for all this.

Well .. the same thing happened to Langston and his wife for that trip that
happened to them and also with me on his foray into Mexico to try to free
up his mess with the IRS here in the USA .. a HUGE issue.  Move
manufacturing of his Hanover Trailers out of the USA.  IRS tailed them into
the Carribean on their flight into Mexico on Trans Texas and I got to see
this seance personally, grin!  Though I wasn't invited on this Carribean
one, I assure you I know the details of the other snoop doggie dog and MANY
other aviation related skirmishes including bullet holes in the N7826R, gas
contamination, the works which are all documented!  Whatever.

So told me, when Howard came down from the penthouse there to the casino to
seal the deal, Ruble and his wife met him - with his protection - at a
Blackjack table for 21.  During the process they would finalize the
agreement for the whole housing investment and plant deal.  However, the
IRS and Fed agents that had tailed them in on the commercial flight also
somehow wound up at the table .. courtesy of the mob connections in the
convolution of a deal they worked out with the mob that time for their
convenience.  The enemy of your enemy is your friend of course, grin.  You
know the process, I'm sure.

My Uncle Abe Mailman, Meyer Lansky, and Herbert Allen from New York were
the group that brought all the casinos and gambling into the Carribean but
that's another story and it's not aviation .. grin!  And neither are the
Morman LDS crew who took care of Hughes, were in the middle management of
this housing operation gambit as well via Dick Harris and others I knew
nothing about when I started into this flight into the wild blue yonder. 
Which apparently under the table is how more of this may have drilled it's
way into the useless stratosphere.  And which I knew NOTHING about in all
of this.

Whatever.  Hughs blew up at the snoop doggie dog session and went back to
the penthouse.  The deal never went through.  There was follow-on contact
with Jinks Caldwell and so on and I'm thinking that my notes and phone
records from back then contain some of this.  I eventually bought the book
which I'll check on the title where it is at the remote site.  I know that
when I read it much later, Jinks Caldwell's name is mentioned in that book.
 Memory says the title is something like 'The Real Life of Howard Hughs',
but its been decades since I've looked at it.  I'll dig it up in a day or
so and check the title.

My recollection of all this is that it was a rented DH125, brought in by
the LDS crew .. as part of Howard's last request(s).


--> Sleep well; OS/2's still awake! ;)

Mike {at} 1:117/3001

--- Maximus/2 3.01