A Brief History
On November 2, 1947, eccentric airplane designer Howard Hughes performed the maiden and only flight of his Spruce Goose (also known as the H-4 The Hercules), the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.
Digging Deeper
Howard Hughes was a veritable renaissance man. The businessman dabbled in everything from film making to flying. One of the wealthiest men of his day, he had a net worth of $1.5 billion at the time of his death. A man of such wealth and such diverse interests is not surprisingly going to sometimes use that wealth for attempting to make his most ambitious dreams a reality.
The Spruce Goose is a famous case in point!
In 1932, Howard Hughes founded the Hughes Aircraft Company. The company employed around 80,000 employees by the end of World War II.
During the war, the United States War Department considered ways to transport supplies to Britain in a manner that would diminish the threat of German submarines. Hughes, along with a ship builder, worked on a design for an airplane capable of transporting either an M4 Sherman tank or 750 fully equipped soldiers. Their design would be for what was in effect a flying transport ship.
Due to wartime limits on aluminum, Hughes instead utilized wood for the Hughes H-4 Hercules (“Spruce Goose” was a nickname from critics). Due to delays, the plane was not finished until two years after World War II concluded.
The flying boat (it could float on water), was 218 ft 8 in (66.65 m) long with a wingspan of 320 ft 11 in (97.54 m) and a height of 79 ft 4 in (24.18 m). The massive plane weighed 400,000 lb (180,000 kg) and could travel at 250 mph (407.98 km/h).
To prove these capabilities, Hughes piloted the plane on its maiden flight on November 2, 1947 with thirty-five others along for the ride. It flew at about 135 miles per hour for a relatively short distance, but it never flew again. Nothing disastrous happened, it was just never needed. It did, however, have a secret crew of hundreds of workers who maintained it for the next thirty years (just in case!). Today, it is on display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in Oregon.
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Historical Evidence
Many trees have been felled to not only contribute to the building of this large plane, but also to provide the pages of the numerous articles and books on its history. A good place to start is Howard Hughes And His Flying Boat.
Barton, Charles. Howard Hughes And His Flying Boat. Charles Barton Inc, 1998.
If you would rather watch a documentary instead, we recommend the good work of the History Channel.
Man, Moment, Machine: Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose. Lionsgate, 2007. DVD.
The featured image in this article, a photograph of the H-4 Hercules “Spruce Goose,” is a photograph from San Diego Air & Space Museum at Flickr Commons. According to the museum, there are no known restrictions on the publication of these photos. This image or file is a work of a Federal Aviation Administration employee, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain in the United States.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="604 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=604">23 Comments
I think Hughes was right for building the plane. New inventions are always needed in society. However, I do not think he needed to keep it prepared since it was not needed back in that time. It makes me wonder if he kept it prepared to keep his pride alive since he built it.
I think Hughes was smart in building the plane, however the timing of completion two years after World War II was not ideal. I don’t believe it was a bad idea necessarily to keep it maintained-You never know he could have believed there would be a World War III and wanted to keep it handy!
It was unfortunate that the plane was not completed until after the war ended. However keeping it maintained was a good idea. You never know what can happen and another war could have broken out and he plane might have been needed.
I think it was a good idea to build the plane, but the fact that it wasn’t finished until two years after the war made it useless. I do however think it was a good idea to keep it maintained because why let all that work and money go to waste. You never know when it might be needed.
I think that Hughes was being innovative and trying to do something worthwhile that he enjoyed doing. The idea of the aircraft was created in the best of intentions. If I were Hughes I would have taken my very expensive and time consuming project for a spin as well. I do find it unfortunate, however, that many trees were lost in the production of the plane.
I believe that Hughes was correct in building the plane, but I agree with the other students when it is said that it was a shame that the plane was not done until the after the war. I also believe it was a good idea to keep the plane maintained to have the plane go to some sort of use
Like my fellow classmates, I do believe that is was a wonderful idea for Hughes to build the plane. However it was a real bummer the plane was not finished until after the war. Just think how they could have used the plane.
I think Hughes was a mechanical genius by building this gigantic air craft! His plane has brought our modern day aeronautics to great heights and have improved warfare and travel for humans. Only downside to his creation was that it was not able to be utilized during the war. It could have changed things a lot as far as warfare goes!
To be completely honest I am not sure how I feel about this. I think that it was an interesting idea and that it may have impacted the war had it been able to have been used. I also find it fascinating that it could actually fly considering its size. I do believe, however, that it was a bit excessive to hire a secret crew to keep it maintained just in case.
I agree with Noelle. It’s not like this idea would be considered absurd in modern day technology. We have planes that can practically fly themselves now. I think that his idea was revolutionary for his time. Although, hiring a secret crew just to maintain the thing seems a little weird. Why did it have to be a secret? But I’m sure a man with that much money in his pocket had no guilt for keeping it maintained. After all this was one of this man’s dreams. Why not take care of it?
I think that keeping such a huge plane a secret is pretty funny. With the amount of money that he had he probably didn’t mind though. I think this changed how we build and construct our planes. This was a very interesting article that I knew nothing about.
From what little I learned about Hughes, I think this guy had an open mind (and money). I feel like the military has planes like this and could be modeled after Hughes’s, just not as excessive. I can agree with the “just-in-case” idea behind it but not the way he thought of it. I mean couldn’t he have scraped the plane and but it to better use BUT keep the original plans safe? I can see this crazy idea being put to use and if not, it certainly be one crazy American story. This is what mades America after all right (one of them anyway)?
I agree with Noelle- it was a magnificent task to build such a huge aircraft from wood! It seems that Hughes had lots of money and didn’t mind to spend it on what he believed in. If he could spend the money to build and fly this great machine then spend the money to store it for so many years, then he certainly believed in what he was doing.
I find this very interesting. If this is what he wanted to do and spend his money on then good for him. I do not see anything wrong with him building the aircraft. I am sure that it would have been put to get use if needed.
Hughes was an amazingly ambitions man and I think if that is what he choose to spent his money on that is fine.
Hughes had every right to build the plane and utilize his funds as he wished. Keeping it prepared “just in case” kept many individuals employed which aided the stimulation of the economy by means other than the government.
He may of not had a right, but what is the harm in having a “just in case” plan? I think it is interesting how he kept it a secret and hired a secret crew to build the plane. This is an interesting story.
By all means, Hughes was justified in building and maintaining such a plane. With the cold war going on I’m sure everyone had their own secret plans, just not everyone has the kind of money that Hughes did.
I believe he was right when he built a plane for just in case. It was his money and he could do whatever he wanted with it. He never knew if he would need a plane or not. He wanted to be prepared for whatever was able to happen.
Cool. My great grandmother’s brother, Ed Tollard helped build that beast and designed parts of the wings to keep them from shaking off. They had pictures all over the house with Howard’s signature. It’s always fun to find people writing about that bird.
Howard had all the right to build such a massive plane. With the unknown of war time the plane was a nice backup plan. He had all the right to keep it prepared of the unknown and since he funded the plane he could do what ever he wanted.
I think he was right to build the plane, but if it wasn’t completed until two years AFTER the war, then I’m not really sure what he was keeping it maintained for. I suppose a man of his wealth could afford to do such things, but obviously it was never used for its intended purpose.
I cannot believe that the plane was not completed until 2 years after the war. I found this article really interesting.
AM