Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Two years ago a very close friend who had flown P-47's over Europe passed away. When cleaning out his things we ran across his early photos albums which were the coolest I've ever seen. One one page were the P-40's, P-51's, P-47's, P-38's and P-80's he flew ... on the opposite pages were hot chicks, some clad in the outfits you'd commonly see in Nose Art of the period.

This one stunningly beautiful woman stood out from the rest. She kept showing up and in one picture she was in a TWA Uniform. We had a party at our house after the funeral and I finally asked his 88 year old sister "who is this beautiful woman" ? She beamed and said "it's me, silly."

TWA selected some of their prettiest FA's to work the "Hughes flights" and she was proud that she had been selected. She was very junior and these flights were a much better schedule than she could hold. Hughes would sometimes fly, sometimes sit in back. In her opinion he was a smooth pilot. She does not describe any of the odd behavior that we read about today. Basically VIP ops were not a whole lot different than the way major airlines treat VIP charters today. Find employees that smile nice and who are flexible with the changing schedules and requests that big spenders (or owners) desire.