A Fanciful Flight in the 'Spruce Goose'

Ride along on a Microsoft Flight Simulator journey through history in the H-4 Hercules.

Patrick Chovanec

Friday, July 07, 2023 at 02:47 PM ET

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[Image courtesy of Patrick Chovanec]

Key Takeaways:

The H-4 Hercules, also known as the "Spruce Goose," was designed by Howard Hughes during WWII as a colossal wooden flying boat to transport cargo and troops across the Atlantic, bypassing German U-boats, due to wartime aluminum restrictions.
Its development faced significant challenges, including construction difficulties with wood, cost overruns, and delays, leading to a reduced contract and a Senate investigation into Hughes for alleged war profiteering.
To confront his critics, Hughes made an unannounced 26-second maiden flight on November 2, 1947, lifting the aircraft 70 feet above the water, which successfully halted the hostile political hearings.
Despite its single, brief flight, the "Spruce Goose" held the record for the largest wingspan for decades, pioneered hydraulically assisted steering, and represented an ambitious vision for strategic airlift that influenced future heavy-lift aircraft.

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For this session in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, I’ll be attempting to fly Howard Hughes’ giant H-4 Hercules. Constructed almost entirely out of wood, it was for a long time the largest airplane ever built, and flew only once.

Why Was It Built?

In an earlier post, I described Hughes’ early career, and the H-1 Racer he built in 1935 to set world speed records. As I also mentioned, he tried but failed to sell the H-1 to the U.S. Army as a high-performance fighter. Even after World War II began, and the U.S. aviation industry was booming with wartime orders, Hughes Aircraft failed to secure any military contracts. His proposed D-2 fighter, which looked much like a P-38, was an expensive flop. Starting in 1939, Hughes owned a controlling stake in Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA) and played an important role in encouraging development of the Lockheed Constellation. But Hughes Aircraft itself seemed to be losing out.