Hughes H-4 Hercules

First published June 30, 2020

The image is of a balsa wood model of the Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat. I built this model several years ago, a hobby I acquired as a pre- teen. This plane, its design, construction and its gargantuan hanger are important historical events and places in today’s Playa Vista, where in 1940 Howard Hughes bought the land in the environs of the Ballona wetlands, and built the Hughes Airport with its associated large hangers and a private runway. The H-4 Hercules was intended to be used in World War II for the air transport of large military ordinance, two Sherman tanks and 750 fully-equipped troops, to the European theater of war from the U.S. This capability was designed to mitigate the large losses of materiel and men in merchant ship convoys to marauding German U-boats and their wolf packs in the early years of the war. The plane’s construction, however, did not reach completion until after the war. It took until 1947 to make its first flight. It was built of laminated birch, not spruce. From 1947 until Hughes’s death in 1976, it was kept in its climate-controlled hanger at a large annual cost. The plane’s nickname, Spruce Goose, was an appellation of derision by the critics of this improbable project and its unpredictable, but determined builder. Wood was used to fabricate the plane because of the limits on use of aluminum during the war and the need to make this largest of all aircraft light enough to lift off. In November 1947, it took its first and only flight, rising to an altitude of 70 feet and travelling a distance of one mile, in the channel facing Cabrillo Beach, California. The original idea for this giant transport plane was that of Henry J. Kaiser, the industrialist, shipbuilder, auto manufacturer, and pioneer in developing a healthcare system for his employees, who enlisted Howard Hughes to build it. Kaiser left the project but Hughes persisted. The plane was originally designated HK-1, the last initial of both men’s names; Hughes changed it to H-1, and eventually H-4, as its design went through several iterations before the final one was developed. In time, the nickname Spruce Goose became a term of endearment as this improbable, unique, behemoth of a flying boat was retired after a very short (few minutes) flying career. Unlike the hero of mythology, Hercules, known among other things for his adventures and great deeds throughout the Greco-Roman world, this Hercules was fixed in place. It was enshrined and visited by many tourists at its display site, initially in Long Beach, California and, then, in the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

Written May 2020