Spruce Goose - Still the biggest wingspan

[turboplanner]

Came across this interesting comparison with today's big aircraft

 

Spruce Goose-3.pdf

 

Spruce Goose-3.pdf

 

Spruce Goose-3.pdf

[Guest Maj Millard]

Saw the goose at Longbeach when it was there. Stood there for a few minutes just admiring the dome it was in. The largest free standing unsupported structure in the world at that time.

 

The goose is now in Oregon in a beautifully constructed glass fronted hangar, so you can still admire it even when they are closed.

 

One hell of a wood aeroplane, and as it did show once, a good flying machine also.

 

Howard loved it, and always kept it ready to go, up until his death. This cost over a million a year (air-conditioned) and even included upgrading the 8 X P&W 4360s to the latest models sometime in the sixties. The engines were run one at a time, each month, for years.

 

When they were removing it from the dome at longbeach somebody miscalculated the height of the tail, and a bit was knocked off. A mate of mine at Redcliff airport was there at the time, and he has a piece framed in his office. A sort of silver painted composit plywood. It was painted white later in its life, but was originally silver. I made him an offer for it, but he wasn't parting with it.

 

One of the worlds most original aeroplanes, and it's great that it is still in one piece. And by the way there wasn't a bit of spruce in it, it was mostly made from Ash.

 

 

[Smokey]

Hi Maj

 

Do you happen to know the reason it was moved to Oregan ?

 

Some historical reason or just circumstances at the time ?

 

Mark

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

The controlling corporation of Hughes' companies after his death was the Sumna Corp. (read mormans, who had conned him into many arrangements, and were accused of causing his death through neglect at the end) The Sumna Corp wern't prepared to fork out money to keep the aircraft, and they were going to cut it up and sell off individual bits to various enterties, which would have been a big shame. The Evergreen International Corp who run Air frieght and Heavy aircraft maintenance companies, seeing the historical nature of the aircraft, stepped in and bought the aircraft to keep it in one piece.

 

They then had the huge problem of how to get it to their museum site in McMinnville, Oregon. They removed the engines and wings and put it onto a huge ocean-going barge. During the trip up the West coast of California a huge pacific storm threatened to sink it, but they got through ok. It is in good hands now and Howard would be pleased with it's new shed.......You can get to thier site by doing a search for 'spruce goose museum' I personally am a great admirer of Howard Hughes (the pilot) and find the HK-1 to be a facinating flying machine. I think having seen it in the flesh helped...The HK is Hughes/Kaiser who was a ship building magnate who partenered the project initially (Kaiser Steel)..If you visit the museum site you will see that they also have many other historical aircraft including an SR-71 Blackbird...the yanks don't mess around, and money doesn't talk, it swears !!.....................................

 

 

[turboplanner]

If you're interested, it's worth doing some google digging on the history of this aircraft.

 

The most common story is that Kaiser started it, Hughes came in and because he was such a perfectionist and meddked in everything, couldn't get it finished in time and the prject was cancelled.

 

The real story is much more intersting. He hired a team of aviation engineers to break boundaries that had never been broken before.

 

Such a large structure required totally new techniques, and they collaborated with the top wartime British engineers to come up with a laminated wood which was lighter, but stronger, than aluminium.

 

There were benefits for both the British aircraft industry and Hughes as the breakthroughs allowed the aircraft to be built.

 

The cotrol system was another huge breakthrough. The flying surfaces were so large that it wasn't possible to get mechanical leverages that weren't beyond a pilot's strength, so they knew they had to use hydraulics. The big breakthrough came when they invented a method of getting feedback from the control surfaces to the pilot's hands.

 

Much of the engineering solutions on that aircraft transferred to others used for passenger transport, and it's interesting to see that even today, we haven't really gone much further in size.

 

Just imagine the mag checks on 8 engines, and remembering the cowl flaps etc!

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

The way they portrayed the initial flight in 'The Aviator' was pretty well done I thought. Hughes had not told the press that day that he intended flying it, and they thought they were just in for some taxi tests...............................................