AVIATION: The U. S. Shrinks

Lanky, black-haired Howard Robard Hughes, moviemaker, planemaker and speed flyer, shrank the U.S. continent this week. In a brand-new four-motored, 60-passenger Lockheed Constellation he took off from Burbank, Calif, at 3:56 (P.W.T.), landed at Washington, D.C. six hours and 58 minutes later. Average speed: 355 m.p.h. He cracked his own seven-year transcontinental record by 30 minutes, smashed the nine-year-old transport record by 3 hours, 24 minutes.