3 pilots died...

When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...

Ha! 3 people is NOTHING! Just read this excerpt from a Cracked.com article on Hughes' later film, The Conqueror:

Unfortunately for Susan and the rest of the cast, health and safety regulations weren't quite as strict in the 1950s as they are now. For instance, stuntmen didn't have to wear any kind of harness, fire drills weren't mandatory and movies could be filmed downwind from Nevada desert above-ground nuclear test facilities.

Thus the actors and crew were exposed to nuclear fallout for the 13 weeks they filmed in Snow Canyon, downwind from the Yucca Flats were the US Army tested 11 atomic bombs. The rest of the movie was filmed in Hollywood, but Howard Hughes managed to maintain the integrity of the movie's Mongolian setting by shipping 60 tones of nuclear contaminated dirt from Snow Canyon back to Hollywood.

Over the next few years, 91 of the 220 crew members developed cancer, 46 died including John Wayne, Susan Hayward and the director. One of the film's other stars, Pedro Armendariz, committed suicide when he found out his cancer was terminal.

In his last days, Howard Hughes, with his beard and fingernails grown disturbingly long, living a now reclusive lifestyle, reportedly watched The Conqueror over and over again, racked with guilt, as he waited for the sweet embrace of death.

Good movie though.

He is responsible for the death of 46 people, including John Wayne! Twice that many had their lives significantly shortened by cancer!

I am Jack's IMDb post.

"Conscience"? Hughes?

Oh, you must mean, "cost overruns."

What I had in mind was boxing the compass.

I seriously doubt three dead stunt pilots drove Hughes to madness. Dude had major issues that went well beyond that. I do think, however, that his barely-controlled megalomania caused the death of the pilots, no question about that.

Please nest your IMDB page, and respond to the correct person -

Not all were pilots. One man died after setting off the smoke pot in the back of the big bomber; he couldn't scramble out of the plane in time.

That bit of meaningless trivia aside, neither Hollywood stunt work nor aviation itself was a safe occupation in 1930. Yes, it is ridiculous to risk lives for the sake of a mere movie. But there are two important things to learn from this. It was a different era. And this film is perhaps the greatest memorial tribute to the thousands who died in that air war ever created.

No one died making the CGI for Flyboys. But Flyboys is so far from reality that it seems to not care about the reality of the Great War--and in that respect is in no way a tribute to those men. It's more of a slap in their faces.

Hughes did what we are simply not capable of doing in this liability and lawsuit driven society today. He made a record of true history which can still teach and inform us. It's a pity those three men are so anonymous, as their contribution to our understanding of history is great and invaluable.