Based upon the 1993 non-fiction publication Howard Hughes: The Secret Life by Charles Higham, the film illustrates the life of Howard Hughes, an aeronautics leader and supervisor of the film Hell's Angels The movie portrays his life from 1927 to 1947 throughout which time Hughes became a successful movie producer and an air travel tycoon while all at once growing more unpredictable due to serious obsessive-compulsive condition (OCD).

The much however short declared trip of Hughes' HK-1 Hercules on November 2, 1947, was realistically recreated in the Port of Long Beach The motion control Spruce Goose and aviator sunglasses for small faces Hughes Hangar minis built by New Bargain Studios get on screen at the Evergreen Aviation Gallery in McMinnville, Oregon, with the original Hughes H-1 Spruce Goose.

Besides, Hughes is hardly averse at risking his life in other means, becoming a record-smashing flying ace and later getting TWA off the ground a lot to the discouragement of rival Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), the head of Frying pan Am. The Pilot with Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn and Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes.

Clocking in at 169 minutes, The Pilot tries to remain up, yet like Howard Hughes' much-too-big and much-too-heavy Spruce Goose (a.k.a. The Hercules), this cinematic jumbo can maintain itself airborne just a few mins at a time. Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes and Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn The Pilot images: Miramax Warner Bros