The black and white view of Howard Hughes standing with several unidentified men near the Lockheed 14 aircraft that was then being refueled. Hughes was then on his Around the World Flight where he visited Paris, Moscow, Fairbanks, and Alaska.

The black and white view of Howard Hughes standing with several unidentified men near the Lockheed 14 aircraft that was then being refueled. Hughes was then on his Around the World Flight where he visited Paris, Moscow, Fairbanks, and Alaska.

Howard Hughes' flying boat docked near the waters of Los Angeles Harbor, taken July 16, 1947.

The XF-11 plane before its first flight at the Hughes Airport in Culver City, California.

Howard Hughes (at center, holding script) talks with actor Walter Huston (at left,with back to camera) on the set of the motion picture "The Outlaw."

The Hughes HK-1 Hercules Flying Boat shown tied to its dock at Terminal Island in the Los Angeles Harbor in 1947.

Transcribed from attached press release: HUGHES TOOL COMPANY Cornerstone of the industrial empire of Howard Hughes is the Hughes Tool Company of Houston, Texas, which last year produced more than half a million rock bits for drilling the kind of deep wells now producing 90 per cent of the world's petroleum. In the company's mechanical testing section (above) engineers test the products under conditions simulating actual drilling. Howard Hughes' father's invention of the rock bit is believed to be one of the most important industrial developments of the century; without such a tool we might still be living in a horse and buggy era."