On 13 September 1935, Howard Hughes climbed into the cockpit of a sleek silver racer of his own design and flew it at 352.39 mph across a measured course in Santa Ana, California — faster than any landplane in history had ever flown. He was 29 years old, had already inherited a fortune from a drill-bit company, and was spending it on the most obsessive aviation programme since the Wright Brothers. What drove Hughes into the sky was not money or fame. It was speed. Pure, uncomplicated, machine-mediated speed.