Glenn Odekirk

Who was Glenn Odekirk?

Glenn Odekirk, was an American aerospace engineer who made significant contributions to the work of Hughes Aircraft.

The son of Edward John and Louise Odekirk, Glenn, also known by his nickname 'Ode', was an Oregon State University engineer, graduating in 1927. During the 1930s and through World War II 'Ode' was the assistant to the president of Hughes Aircraft, and had a very close, professional relationship with the president, the businessman Howard Hughes.

Odekirk met Hughes on the set of his movie Hell's Angels, and Hughes was very impressed with him. For several years, the two flew around the country together, testing the young engineer's ideas and arguing constantly over the most trivial matters of airplane construction.

It was Odekirk who carefully examined airplane after airplane during the 1930s, to find the one Hughes eventually used to set his record-breaking round-the-globe flight of 91 hours. A plane Odekirk helped design during 1935, known to historians as the Hughes H-1 Racer, set a world speed record of 352.39 miles per hour in September of that year, beating Raymond Delmotte's record of 314.32 miles per hour. The plane was revolutionary for its time and was one of the first planes in history to sport retractable landing gear and special countersunk screws and flat rivets to reduce wind resistance.