I.

r

r L .

He's not depicted in "The Aviator;"
but former Detroiter David
Grant was by the side of
a 20th-century legend
during a remarkable
test flight.

Leonardo DiCaprio
as Howard Hughes
in "The Aviator"

BILL CARROLL
Special to the
Jewish News

F

lash back to Nov. 2, 1947, in
Long Beach (Calif.) Harbor. Howar
Hughes, the eccentric billionaire, aviation
pioneer and Hollywood film mogul, sits at the wheel of
the largest wooden airplane ever conceived — the "Flying
Boat," also known as the "Hercules" or the "Spruce Goose." In the
co-pilot's seat is Jewish former Detroiter David Grant, a graduate o
Detroit Central High School and the University of Michigan
engineer.
Having invited the press and the public to supposedly watch taxi tests on the
water, Hughes suddenly "told me to lower the flaps to 15 degrees," Grant recalled
40 years later. "That's takeoff position. He shoved the throttle forward and away we
went."
Reaching 70 miles per hour, Hughes lifted the plane to 70 feet. It flew a little over
a minute, and then dropped back to a perfect watery landing and thousands of
cheers.
It was the first — and last — time the plane ever flew, much to the disappoint-
ment of Grant and other Hughes Aviation team members, who spent years laboring
on the project all day, and even holding clandestine meetings with Hughes at night
at the homes of Hollywood movie stars to ensure privacy
Fast-forward to Dec. 25, 2004, the opening day of The Aviator, a bio-pic about
Hughes' early life, at area movie theaters. The Flying Boat's test flight is dramatically
re-created toward the end of the film.
But wait! That's not Grant in the co pilot's seat. It's an old college professor whom
Hughes
played by Leonardo DiCaprio — hired as a meteorologist, and whom
he asks in the movie to sit there as the flight begins.
Grant, a good friend of Hughes', and a hydraulics expert who created several
hydraulics control systems for Hughes Aviation, isn't depicted in the film at all.

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—

Hollywood License

"That's Hollywood for you," declared Allan Grant of Troy, David Grant's first
cousin, who viewed an advance screening of the film. Allan Grant has collected pho-
tos, drawings, newspaper clippings, book sections and other memorabilia about his
cousin and is quick to offer them to anyone who will tell the correct story of the key

role
played
by David
Grant in Hughes'
aviation empire.
"That's just not accurat
added Ruth Grant of Encin
Calif, when told of the film's conten
She's the widow of David Grant, who
Alzheimer's disease three years ago at the age
"I was warned in advance that Hollywood wo
poetic license in this movie, and I guess they di ,
Some inaccuracies aside, The Aviator is an excellent
making and a surefire Academy Award contender. Pr
Weinstein brothers of Miramax Studio fame, plus the
producing companies and co-producers, the movie is
Martin Scorsese, who could finally win an Oscar with this one.
the screenplay.
True to its title, the film is filled with old planes, record-setting around =
and plenty of technical aviation discussions, plus old cars,
jazz age music and great portrayals of famous movie stars.
The story recounts Hughes' life from the late 1920s through the1940s, when
was producing such movies as
Angels-, the World War I epic'and-first mule
lion dollar talkie, and test flying innovative aircraft he desianed and built

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HOWARD. HUGHES

on page 47

