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.
