The ‘Spruce Goose’ was the largest flying boat every built and yet it made only one flight. What links the legendary Howard Hughes to this unique aircraft? Read on to find out…
Why was it built?
During the Second World War, German submarines were sinking so many ships that the U. S. Department of War faced a crisis. They desperately needed war materials and troops to get across the Atlantic. In 1942, they asked for someone to build an aircraft that could achieve this. A major catch was that due to wartime shortages, the aircraft had to be made from materials other than metal.
Who designed it?
The multi-millionaire, film producer, film director and aviator Howard Hughes teamed up with Henry J. Kaiser to build the largest aircraft at that time. It was designed to be capable of carrying 750 troops with full equipment, or even a Sherman tank. It was originally called HK-1, which stood for Hughes and Kaiser.
The design takes shape
The original HK-1 contract was a developmental one, which asked for three aircraft to be built in under two years. This time frame was because they were so desperately needed for the war. Seven designs were looked at, including aircraft with single and twin hulls, and combinations of four, six and eight engines mounted on the wings. The design that was chosen went on to become the Spruce Goose and it was enormous. It was mostly built from wood and this also earned it the nickname ‘the flying lumberyard’. It is said that Howard Hughes hated the name ‘Spruce Goose’.
The project did not go smoothly. Kaiser had the original idea for a type of flying cargo ship but his background was not in aeronautics, so he had to bow to Howard Hughes and his aircraft designer, Glenn Odekirk. The use of aluminum was restricted and Hughes was a perfectionist. Both of these things caused delays. Although the first HK-1 was built sixteen months after the contract began, Kaiser dropped out of the project.
Howard Hughes goes it alone…
Undaunted, Hughes carried on alone. He renamed the aircraft HFB-1, which stood for Hughes Flying Boat, 1st design. It then became the H-4 Hercules. Hughes signed a new contract with the Government which allowed for only one such aircraft to be produced. Work went so slowly that the H-4 was not finished until long after the war was over.
Hughes called to face the Senate
In 1947, Hughes was summoned to testify before the Senate War Investigating Committee. This was with regard to his usage of government funds to build the aircraft, which hadn’t even flown yet. On the 6th August 1947, in his first of several appearances before the Senate, Hughes said
“The Hercules was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest aircraft ever built. It is over five storeys tall with a wingspan longer than a football field. That’s more than a city block. Now, I put the sweat of my life into this thing. I have my reputation all rolled up in it and I have stated several times that if it’s a failure I’ll probably leave this country and never come back. And I mean it.”
The Spruce Goose flies…
The Senate hearings took a break and Hughes returned to California to run the Spruce Goose through some taxi tests. On 2nd November 1947, the tests took place. On board were Hughes as pilot, a co-pilot, two flight engineers, sixteen mechanics and two other flight crew. There were also seven journalists and seven industry representatives. This gave a total of thirty two people on the aircraft.
After the first two taxi runs, four journalists disembarked to file their stories. The remaining twenty eight people stayed on board. The final taxi run of the day began. The Hercules picked up speed on the channel facing Cabrillo Beach near Long Beach. It then took off and stayed in the air, around 70 feet / 21 metres above the water. It travelled at a speed of 135 mph / 217 km/h / 117 knots for around one mile / 1.6 km.
This flight ended the senate hearings but the Spruce Goose never flew again. Hughes employed a full time crew of 300 people who kept the aircraft in flying condition in a specially climate controlled hangar. In 1962 the crew was dropped down to 50. When Hughes died in 1976, the crew were disbanded.
The Spruce Goose on display
The aircraft was acquired by the California Aero Club in 1980. They displayed it in a large dome next to the Queen Mary ship in Long Beach. In 1988, Disney bought the aircraft, the ship and the land they were on. However, they didn’t wish to display the Spruce Goose. The California Aero Club searched long and hard for somewhere suitable to display it and eventually passed it to the Evergreen Aviation Museum. Experienced Museum staff took the aircraft to pieces and then moved it by barge to its’ new home in McMinnville, Oregon. The 1,055 mile trip took 138 days.
Hughes hangars in the movies…
By the middle of the 1990’s, the Hughes Aircraft Hangars, including the one where the Spruce Goose were built, were made into movie sound stages. The 315,000 square foot / 29,000 metre squared Spruce Goose hangar was used in Titanic, What Women Want and End of Days.
The hangar is preserved in the Playa Vista housing development in Los Angeles, California. It is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Buildings.
Spruce Goose – success or failure?
Although the aircraft never flew again and didn’t develop beyond the initial model, the H-4 Hercules showed that the principles of flight are not affected by the size of the aircraft. It was a taste of the enormous aircraft to come, such as the Lockheed C-5.
It was certainly a triumph of the determination of one man to realize a dream.
Filed under: America & Canada
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Wanda and Paula are friends and business partners that love to travel. We developed this website to share our experiences, what we've learned over the years and also to provide reviews on hotels, airlines, restaurants and anything else travel related.
I would like to begin by saying, thank you for supplying me with the information I’ve been looking for. I have been searching the net for two hours looking for it and would have given my right arm if I would have found your website sooner. Not only did I locate what I was looking for, but also found answers to questions I never even thought to ask myself. Thank you for such a wonderful web-site!
I’m with you. And it just so happens that I live in Portland Oregon. ONE HOUR away from Hughes Flying Boat. What’s funny is that I already knew most of what I read, everything but the fact that it’s been sitting but an hours drive from me since I was seven!
The problem is I can’t find anyone who gives a flying lumber yard about aviation. My first question was “can I go inside?”. YOU CAN! HOWEVER, it costs an extra 25 dollars (!) to enter the cockpit. Seeing that I currently have no source of income aside from random labor, I’m going to have to save up and just bite the bullet. Because while the majority of the tourists who go there are either there for the water park linked next to it (no joke. “wings and waves”. literally an aviation water park!) or simply to be “a REALLY big plane”. For me it’s all about sitting in the same seat that Howard Hughes flew it’s first and only flight. I would have thought I’d have to go to southern california. But my god, a mere hour away. I just need someone who’s interested enough to go with me. I don’t think any of my friends no much about Howard Hughes, other than a tortured by ocd (and I believe minor tourettes) guy who flew planes and locked himself in a screening room peeing in jars.
It will be hard to bite my tongue as EVERYONE calls it “the spruce goose” (a slanderous term from the mouth of a senator who had a personal vendetta against hughes for not selling TWA to PAN AM for his personal agenda).
It’s true that Hughes was severely mentally ill. He had MANY film marathons that took place in closed off hotel rooms which he wouldn’t step foot out of for months. Not just the one the public found out about. All the while he conducted elaborate meetings and business transactions by phone, which allowed him to keep his company and his empire.
Like it is for many of us out there, his illness started from his mother. She bathed him compulsively instilling a severe fear of contamination. Even teaching him to spell out words like q u a r a n t i n e. It’s been said that despite Hughes intense dread of germs for lack of a better word, he contracted syphilis at one point. Which caused sores at the ends of his fingers. Which he would scrub viciously. Penicillin was still experimental at the time. But was administered to him after the crash in southern California which left him burned and disfigured. The penicillin would have killed the syphilis. If he truly had it in the first place that is. Doctors throw out the wrong diagnoses all the time as we all know.
Hughes was a collector of beautiful women, mostly actresses, a list as long as his achievements. It’s said he would send all his women to his personal physician to be checked out first to make sure they were not sick in any way. Most find it rather ironic that while he was terrified of contamination, he would sit in his own filth for months at a time. I think he saw it as being quarantined. Nevertheless. He would go for long periods of time without bathing, shaving or changing clothes… In the end it was the drugs that killed him. He was up to 150 mg (!!!) of Valium along with extremely high doses of pain killers. Which while he needed there is no debate that he self-medicated, in his defense he really was in severe pain.
Howard Hughes died at 70, living longer and any intense pain patient known to this day. I personally think the drive to create despite his crippling condition helped his life-span. Somehow he got tied up with Mormons in the end who would blackmail him with his drugs to gain his assets. Basically it was as simple as “sign this or you wont get your drugs”. As an addict myself who needs controlled substances to suppress and dampen my own symptoms (not too far from the ones displayed by Hughes which only became increasingly worse) I can tell you that there is no price on sickness. When you are that deep into it for that amount of time with a GENUINE condition, MULTIPLE conditions one becomes willing to sell their soul not to experience a withdrawal that can be so severe it probably would have killed him faster than the drugs.
Well, I think I’ve shared most the information I know about Howard Hughes. I figured if you looked for two hours to find the info this fine fellow posted then you might not mind reading what seems to have turned into a biography more or less. And I could tell you more. About how he bugged and monitored every woman he was involved with. Having them spied on with 24 hour surveillance. I throw that in lastly because it should be know that Howard Hughes needed complete control over everything in his reality. Maybe partially because he lacked control over his mind and needed ways to feel like he was in control. The idea of being lost at sea with no control over anything in this universe can be a terrifying thought when you think about it.
Well, that about wraps it up. Many facts and many of my own personal speculations. I hope that if anyone reads this they got something out of it to better understand the very complex Mr. Howard Hughes. My personal inspiration that despite having disadvantages amazing feats can still be accomplished. Something we should all remember….
Thank you so much for sharing this information with our readers, Ryan. Even though I am quite conversant with Howard Hughes life, I found you comment to be an interesting read. I hope one day to get to see the museum. We didn’t end up getting there on my trip because it all became logistically challenging. It’s a pity the plane has been put in such an out of the way place. My enquiries revealed that it was well over an hour to get there from the airport and none of the local hotels run a shuttle service. Such a shame because I think they could capitalize on promoting this wonderful attraction.