|
| Howard Hughes - The Pilot Behind The Legend |
 |
|
|
|
Howard Hughes
The Pilot Behind The Legend
2pm Saturday May 2
Presented by
Jamie Dodson
Instructor at University of Alabama Huntsville
Howard Hughes inherited a fortune based on the rotary drill bit. He died a lonely hermit in 1976, a prisoner of mental illness, drugs and his Mormon aides. But in the thirties he and his aircraft broke every major speed and distance record. The custom-built Hughes H-1 Racer set the landplane speed record in 1935 at 352 miles per hour easily outperforming even the fastest military planes of the time. In July, 1938 he and a crew of four flying a Lockheed Lodestar broke the around-the-globe record set by Wiley Post in 1933. Two years later, Hughes was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the flight.
Presenter Information
Jamie's first historical fiction novel Flying Boats and Spies, a Nick Grant Adventure, was published spring 2008. His second novel The China Clipper is scheduled for publication the summer of 2009. Black Sheep Entertainment has purchased a movie option for Flying Boats and Spies. He has conducted five years of extensive research on the era to insure accuracy. He is member of the Pan Am Historical Foundation, the OSS Foundation, Military Intelligence Corps Association. He writes non-fiction for aviation and military magazines.
He is a career Intelligence officer and worked Counter Intelligence, Special Intelligence, and Signals Intelligence for US Military Intelligence. He has served in Special Operations, Army Aviation, Airborne Infantry, and Military Police. He has been involved in operations in Laos, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Japan, Korea, Guam, Samoa, the Hawaiian Islands and at numerous locations across the US.
He is married to Joan Skawski Dodson, adjunct UAH faculty member and formerly of Chicago. They have traveled the world and lived on three continents with their three children Ian, Neil and Glenna. They have a spoiled Australian Sheppard named Gracie and have called Huntsville, Alabama home since 2001.
Jamie holds a Systems Engineering Certificate from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, a Masters in Computers and Systems Management from Webster University and a Bachelor's in Geospatial Science from the University of Colorado.
Currently, Jamie is an Intelligence Officer and Technology Protection Engineer for the US Army, Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC), Intelligence Division, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.
|
|
