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, famously known as the "Spruce Goose," was a colossal wooden flying boat designed by Howard Hughes during WWII to airlift troops and cargo across the ocean, bypassing German U-boat threats.
Despite its ambitious purpose, the project faced numerous delays and cost overruns due to the unprecedented scale of its wooden construction and Hughes' eccentric management, resulting in only a single prototype being built.
The aircraft made just one brief, 26-second flight on November 2, 1947, primarily to silence critics and demonstrate its flying capability amid government scrutiny.
Though it never saw operational service, the H-4 Hercules remained the largest airplane by wingspan for decades and is recognized as a pioneering vision for large-scale strategic airlift, inspiring future transport 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.