Mark Phelps is reporting on the Flying Magazine website that the Spruce Goose may be up for repo. That’d be something to see!
The Spruce Goose (officially known as the “Hughes H-4 Hercules” FAA registration NX37602) is the largest flying boat ever built and has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in history. It was built from birch wood because of wartime restrictions on metals, like aluminum. Critics nicknamed it the “Spruce Goose” – a name that Howard Hughes despised – even though it contained no spruce at all.
I guess “Birch Bitch” wasn’t publication friendly.
This magnificent aircraft only made one flight – with Howard Hughes at the controls – at Long Beach Harbor on November 2, 1947. The war had long since ended, but Hughes was bound and determined to show his detractors that the plane really could fly.
Kermit Weeks and his Fantasy of Flight team are back at their home base in Polk City, Florida, after spending a week earlier this month prepping Howard Hughes’ Sikorsky S-43 for transport. This is the plane that Hughes had originally planned to use for a record-breaking around the world flight. CAA delays and the arrival of a faster plane made him leave this beautiful seaplane on the ramp.