McCaffery's Biography

Jane's Who's Who in Aviation

Presentations given by Bob McCaffery

Jack Real - Hughes Helicopters

UNLV - Howard Hughes College of Engineering

Hughes Aircraft Company

Bob McCaffery - Aviation historian and distinguished lecturer on “The Amazing Howard Hughes”, has given over two hundred presentations and has appeared nationally on “Good Morning America”, several History Channel segments about the famous Mr. Hughes and countless local radio/television appearances.

In 1980, he led a successful aviation effort to “Save the Hughes Flying Boat” when legal agreements were to be enforced calling for the cutting up of the world’s largest airplane.  With the support of 100’s of aviation enthusiasts and forty seven Congressmen, the aircraft, in just six months, was placed on the “National Registry of Historic Places” that stopped the ’buzz saws’.

He served as President of the Aero Club of Southern California, owners of the ‘Spruce Goose’ and he presided over the annual prestigious “Howard Hughes Memorial Award Banquet” for over a decade.  The Hughes Silver Medallion Award, established in 1979, is given to individuals whose leadership in aviation and aerospace has significantly impacted the industry.   Hughes, a test pilot and considered the ‘father of commercial aviation’, is honored every January to commemorate his daring, record breaking ‘around the world flight’ in January 1938. Some notable aviation recipients of the award are Jack Northup, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, Kelly Johnson, Jack Real, Ben Rich; and Lunar Astronauts Pete Conrad and Neal Armstrong.

Hughes, a test pilot, began his ‘love affair’ with aviation at the age of 14 which continued throughout his lifetime until his death in an airplane in route from Mexico to his birthplace in Houston Texas.  Hughes’ ill-fated test flight crash in his 450 MPH twin engine XF-11 at a speed of 155 mph in Beverly Hills on July 7, 1946, ultimately took his life in April of 1976.

McCaffery gives a refreshing, informative and entertaining insight into the genius of Howard Hughes, whose centennial year is 2005 as is Las Vegas, the city he loved.