From the Annals of the Flyboys –  In 1935, aviator Howard Hughes, Jr., originally of Houston, set a new landplane airspeed record of 352.39 mph in the Hughes H-1 airplane.  The H-1Racer was specifically designed for speed records.. It was the first aircraft model produced by the Hughes Aircraft company and only one was ever built.  It was also the last aircraft built by a private individual to set a world speed record.  All aircraft speed records since then have been broken by military craft.

The H-1 broke the world landplane speed record with Hughes at the controls, clocking 352.39 mph  averaged over four timed passes. Hughes ran out of fuel after the last pass, but managed to land in a beet field south of Santa Ana, California without serious damage to either himself or the plane.  After exiting the plane, Hughes only recorded comment was: “We can fix her; she’ll go faster.”