Flew Around World With Aviation Pioneer : Edward Lund, Hughes’ Co-Pilot, Dies

Edward Lund, who sat in the cockpit next to Howard Hughes in 1938 when the eccentric billionaire aviator completed a grueling round-the-world flight, has died in a Newport Beach hospital, it was reported Monday.

Lund--the last surviving member of Hughes’ four-man crew--was 82 and reportedly had been in poor health since suffering a stroke two years ago.

His daughter, Delores Tippo, said her father had been living in a nursing home until last month, when his health deteriorated further and he was admitted to Hoag Memorial Hospital, where he died Sunday.

With Lund as co-pilot, flight engineer and mechanic, Thomas L. Thurlow and Harry Connor as navigators and Richard Stoddart as radio engineer, the Hughes expedition took off July 10, 1938, from Floyd Bennett Field in New York in a twin-engine Lockheed Model 14.

According to the authoritative biography “Howard Hughes and His Flying Boat,” the 14,824-mile flight ended July 14 in the record time for a round-the-world flight of 3 days, 19 hours and 9 minutes, including some time spent on the ground between legs of the journey. They flew at an average speed of 206.7 m.p.h. and at an average altitude of 12,000 feet using oxygen most of the way.

Behind them they left the wreckage of several records, chief among them the mark of seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes set by a single flier, Wiley Post, in 1933. Two years later Post and Will Rogers, the humorist, were to die in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska.

Hughes’ flight from New York to New York was then considered the epitome of speed. Newspaper accounts noted dramatically that the flight took less time than a train going from New York to San Francisco.

But Hughes minimized the trip, which was burdened by mechanical problems and a constant fear of running out of fuel.

“The flight of Wiley Post must still remain the most remarkable in history,” he said after landing back at Floyd Bennett. “He did it alone.”

Tippo said her father was welding model airplanes for Hughes’ film “Hells Angels” when he first met the heir to the Hughes Tool Co. fortune.

Tippo said her father bore a striking resemblance to Hughes, and the billionaire often asked Lund to impersonate him at public appearances during the 1930s.

In the 1950s, Lund, a native of Kalispell, Mont., founded his own airplane parts supply company, Lund Aviation, in New York.

Later he moved to the San Fernando Valley and worked in real estate before retiring in 1960, Tippo said.

In addition to Tippo, Lund also is survived by his daughters, Edla Cafaro and Ethel Steinhoff; his son, Brian Lund; three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

Funeral services are scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana.