Dapper goose5/15/2023 ![]() ![]() The Aero Club then leased it to the Wrather Corporation, and moved it into a domed hangar in Long Beach, California. After Hughes’ death in 1976, it was gifted by Hughes’ Summa Corporation to the Aero Club of Southern California. The Spruce Goose was kept out of the public eye for 33 years. Perhaps always dreaming of a second flight, Hughes retained a full crew to maintain the mammoth plane in a climate-controlled hangar up until his death in 1976. The short hop proved to skeptics that the gigantic machine could fly. With Hughes at the controls, David Grant as co-pilot, and several engineers, crewmen, and journalists on board, the Spruce Goose flew just over one mile (1.6 km) at an altitude of 70 feet (21 meters) for one minute and at a speed of 80 mph (128 km/h). The unannounced decision to fly was made by Hughes during a taxi test. ![]() The winged giant made only one flight on November 2, 1947. government had spent $22 million on the H-4 and Hughes had spent $18 million of his own money. Fuel bays, divided by watertight bulkheads, were below the cargo hold.īy 1947, the U.S. A circular stairway connected the two compartments. The aircraft’s hull included a flight deck for the operating crew and large cargo hold. The entire airframe and surface structures were composed of laminated wood and all primary control surfaces, except the flaps, were fabric covered. The plane had a single hull, eight radial engines, a single vertical tail, fixed wingtip floats, and full cantilever wing and tail surfaces. He Hercules is the largest flying boat ever built, and it had the largest wingspan of any aircraft that had ever flown until the Scaled Composites Stratolaunch first flew on April 13, 2019. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |