Two books mention this flight
In Bob Rummel's (TWA head engineer) book called "Howard Hughes and TWA" he mentions the flight. And Bob Serling in his book "Howard Hughes' Airline" devotes almost a page to the flight, saying he flew the Connie alone all the way across the country to L.A., but couldn't land because of fog and had to circle two hours before putting it down at LAX late at night. The story must be true but I have a hard time believing it because of the FE panel workload. If it was a DC-6/DC-7 I could see this happening as everything is within easy reach. Howard Hughes must have been one hell of a good pilot!