Bob Lyon remembers the day he met Howard Hughes. He also recalls when Hughes nearly crashed a plane into his boyhood home. Nearly 40 years after Hughes died, Lyon’s life still crosses paths with the eccentric billionaire.
Lyon has found himself in the center of a dispute over Hughes’ gigantic, bizarre wooden seaplane nicknamed the Spruce Goose.
This thing is arguably the world’s most famous airplane and — at five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field — one of the biggest on the planet. The Spruce Goose’s home is a respected aviation museum, which is part of an investigation by the state of Oregon. Here’s the story: In 1992, Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, struck a half-million-dollar deal with Aero Club of Southern California to buy the legendary plane. Lyon — who represents Aero Club — is now negotiating the plane’s final payment, which he estimates at about $50,000.
For the complete story by Thom Patterson of CNN, click here.
