Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Hughes H-4 Hercules, aka The Spruce Goose (Encore)

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

During the height of the Second World War, American shipping to Europe was constantly being attacked by German U-boats.  In an attempt to completely bypass German subs, aviation pioneer Howard Hughes began construction on what would be the world’s largest aircraft.  A plane that was so large it could carry 750 passengers or two full-sized tanks across the Atlantic.  Sadly, it was hampered by wartime rationing of metals and only flew in one memorable test flight. Learn more about the Hughes H-4 Hercules, aka the Spruce Goose, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Sign up for ButcherBox today by going to Butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily at checkout to get $30 off your first box! Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Ben Long & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. During the height of the Second World War, American shipping to Europe was constantly being attacked by German U-boats. In an attempt to completely bypass German subs, Aviation pioneer Howard Hughes began construction on what would be the world's largest aircraft. The plane was so large it could carry 750 passengers or two full-sized tanks across the Atlantic. Sadly, it was hampered by wartime rationing of metals, and it only flew once in a member. test flight. Learn more about the Hughes H4 Hercules, aka the spruce goose on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us. every week on the Thulein podcast from NPR. In 1942, the American military had a big problem. They were shipping enormous amounts of supplies to Britain, but the supply ships were getting picked off by German U-boats. Known as the Battle of the Atlantic, it was the longest continuous military engagement of the Second World War. The losses by the Allies were staggering.

From 1939 to 1945, between the British and the Americans, 3,500 merchant vessels and 175 warships were sunk, resulting in the deaths of 36,000 Navy soldiers and another 36,000 merchant marine sailors. The Americans and British developed techniques for combating the German submarines, but ultimately they could only mitigate the problem. So long as the bulk of the equipment and personnel being sent from America to Britain had to be sent by ship, it was vulnerable to U-boat attacks. The ultimate solution to the problem would just be to bypass the sea entirely.

The idea for creating an airplane that was large enough to transport cargo like a ship came from the shipbuilder Henry Kaiser. Kaiser was responsible for the construction of many of the Liberty ships which were built in the U.S. Liberty ships were low-cost, mass-produced cargo ships, all of a similar design that were constructed at 18 different shipyards around the United States. They were constructed at a rate of three every two days, and 2,710 of them were constructed between the years 1941 and 1945. Kaiser felt that a large airplane would solve the problem and help win the Battle of the Atlantic. However, he was a shipbuilder and knew nothing about airplanes. So he took the idea to the owner of Hughes Aircraft, Howard Hughes.

Hughes liked the idea as it would push the boundaries of aviation, which was something he was always. in pursuit of. Together, Kaiser and Hughes jointly proposed the flying cargo ship to the United States government. The government approved the development of three aircraft over the next two years. The specification for the aircraft was that it would carry 150,000 pounds or 68,000 kilograms of cargo. This would be large enough to carry 750 soldiers or two full-sized Sherman tanks. The wingspan of the plane would be 320 feet or 97.8. meters, the size of a football field. It was to be the largest airplane ever built by a very wide margin. The aircraft was designated the HK1, which reflected the fact that it was a joint project of Hughes and Kaiser.

Other than wanting to build a really big airplane, at first they didn't have any particular design in mind. One of the things that became obvious was that the plane would have to be a seaplane. There simply weren't any landing strips large enough to support a plane of the size. And it would also eliminate the need for landing gear, which would help produce weight. They consider dual hull designs, as well as various engine configurations. The final design that they settled on was a single massive hull design. The plane would have eight Pratt & Whitney, R4360 WAS major, 28-cyl air-cooled radial piston engines producing 3,000 horsepower each. It was the largest piston aircraft engine ever produced by Pratt and Whitney before they went into the production of jet engines. The engine

was eventually adopted for use in aircraft such as the Boeing 377, the Boeing B-50 Super Fortress, and the Boeing C-97 Stratofiter. There was one major problem that they encountered. For an airplane of this size to work, it had to be extremely lightweight, as it was already going to be carrying such a heavy payload. The ideal material for its construction would have been aluminum. Aluminum, however, wasn't as abundant during World War II as it is today. So aluminum was considered a strategic material by the U.S. government, and its use was rationed. Without the ability to procure aluminum, they had to find a substitute, something that was relatively lightweight and strong enough to build an aircraft out of. The solution that they landed on was a substance known as Dura mold.

Dura mold was a type of plywood that used sheets or piles of wood, infuse them with a resin, and then allowed them to set in a mold. The use of Dura mold was considered either to be on the cutting edge of technology, or a joke because it used wood. Critics of the plane dubbed it the spruce goose or the flying lumberyard. In fact, there was almost no spruce used in the creation of the spruce goose. The wood is almost all birch and poplar. Henry Kaiser let Hughes take the lead on the project, given their experience in aircraft design. However, the use of a novel substance like Duramold and the perfectionism of Howard Hughes resulted in constant delays in the aircraft. After two years, the HK1 never met its delivery target, and Kaiser pulled out of the project.

Howard Hughes, however, decided to continue on by himself. The plane was now renamed the Hughes H4 Hercules. He renegotiated his contract with the government, this time only promising to deliver a single prototype aircraft. Work on the plane continued at the Hughes aircraft facility in Los Angeles. However, the construction of the plane took much longer than anyone anticipated. No one had ever built an airplane. No one had ever built an airplane of the size before, and no one had ever built a large aircraft out of Durhamold before. Everything they did had to be figured out from scratch. By the time the war ended in 1945, the plane still wasn't complete. With the end of the war, the entire reason for building the plane disappeared.

Once the dangers of U-boat attacks went away, ships were much cheaper and more efficient for transporting goods. Nonetheless, Howard Hughes continued production of the plane. He had invested not only his money in the project, but also his reputation. Eventually, the plane was ready for final assembly, but it was too large to be transported from the Hughes facility in Los Angeles to the port of Long Beach. The plane had to be moved in four different parts, the fuselage, both wings, and the tail section. A specially designed hangar was created on a pier in Long Beach for final assembly.

However, before the testing of the aircraft was to begin, in August of 1947, how much Howard Hughes was called to testify before a Senate committee investigating war-profit hearing and wasteful spending. Hughes was called in as a high-profile witness, which attracted a great deal of media attention. Many senators thought that the committee hearings would embarrass and discredit Hughes, but he actually managed to turn it into a media triumph. When asked where the $23 million the government invested into the plane went, he pointed out that every aviation company had development contracts for undelivered aircraft. Moreover, he pointed out that he had personally spent more money on the development of the Hercules

than the government did. In perhaps his most famous soundbite from the hearings, he said, quote, The Hercules was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest aircraft ever built. It is over five stories 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, if it's a failure, I'll probably leave this country. and never come back. And I mean it. End quote. In November 1947, Hughes returned to Los Angeles to conduct the first taxi runs of the Hercules. The purpose of the test was literally just to take the plane out for the first time under its own power. It would power up, head out on the water,

and a mock takeoff, and that was it. On November 2nd, the test began with Howard Hughes himself as the pilot. The plane had 36 people in total on board, including Hughes, the co-pilot, mechanics, media and several representatives from the aviation industry. There were two taxiing attempts where the media was able to take photos of the plane in action. Most of the media in attendance left after the second taxiing attempt to go and file their stories. However, during the third attempt, Hughes made the unexpected decision to pull up and make the giant plane airborne. It wasn't much of a flight, but the Hercules did fly.

It reached a peak altitude of only 70 feet or 21 meters. meters, and it had a speed of 135 miles per hour or 217 kilometers per hour, and flew for 26 seconds for a total distance of one mile. Those 26 seconds were the only time the H4 Hercules ever flew. The reason why Howard Hughes made the decision to make the plane fly was to silence as critics. It was hard to say that he wasted government money when he proved that the plane could in fact actually fly. The plane was taken out of its hangar a few. more times for another taxi demonstration, but that was it. As I mentioned before, the H-4-Herculees was now obsolete. A huge cargo-carrying airplane had no use now that the war was over. However, Howard

Hughes had a special place in his heart for the Hercules. He paid for a crew of 300 people to maintain the aircraft in flying condition for the next 15 years, an enormous expense for something that had no future and no purpose. The crew was eventually reduced to 50 people in 1962 and then was totally abandoned after Hughes's death in 1976. After Hughes died, there was debate about what to do with the Hercules. The U.S. government originally made a claim on the airplane with the intent of putting one of the wings on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. In 1980, the plane was purchased by the Aero Club of Southern California. The plane was moved to a specially built geodesic dome alongside the Queen Mary cruise ship.

The site was eventually purchased by the Walt Disney Corporation, who didn't want to have the plane as an attraction anymore. So in 1993, the spruce goose was sold to the evergreen aviation and space museum in McMinville, Oregon, where it sits today. One question which has lingered about the Hercules is if it could have actually flown for real and have fulfilled its mission. Several aerospace engineers have studied the plane, and with modern computer simulations have determined that, yes, it absolutely could have flown, although it would have been even better if it could have used metal instead of wood. After the brief flight of the spruce goose, there were many large airplanes that were built.

The B-52 bomber, the Boeing 747, the Airbus A380, and many others approached the size and wingspan of the Hercules. However, nothing was ever quite the same size. That was until 2017, when the strato launch flew for the first time. The strato launch was a dual-hulled plane built to launch satellites into space, and it was the first airplane that could unequivocally be said to be larger than the spruce goose. By pretty much any measure, the H4 Hercules was a failure. It never managed to transport anything to Europe to assist in the war effort, and it was a colossal waste of money. However, as failures go, it was a pretty incredible one. one that has captured the fascination of aviation enthusiasts and the general public for almost

80 years. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters.

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