Edward C. Light was an aeronautical engineer at the Hughes Aircraft Company (HAC) where he was responsible for supervising the design of aircraft control systems between 1942 and 1946. During this period, he worked on the Hughes H-4 Hercules, also known as the "flying boat" or the "Spruce Goose." As of March 2017, the plane has the longest wingspan of any flight-capable aircraft. Later in his career, he returned to HAC in 1954-1955 as a research physicist working on the Falcon Guidance System.