Hughes H-4 Hercules

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blackkite

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The Hughes H-4 Hercules “Spruce Goose”

In July 2011 I took a journey to the town of McMinnville, Oregon, USA and the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. Apart from having an excellent collection of military, civilian and space aircra…
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XPlanes - Spruce Goose

A site dedicated to aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF), and RAF Valley on Anglesey
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piximus.net

Howard Hughes' H-4 Hercules Is One Of The Most Impressive Planes Of All Time

Howard Hughes' H-4 Hercules Is One Of The Most Impressive Planes Of All Time, 18 photos in Others category, Others photos
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Wikiwand - Hughes H-4 Hercules

The Hughes H-4 Hercules is a prototype strategic airlift flying boat designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. Intended as a transatlantic flight transport for use during World War II, it was not completed in time to be used in the war. The aircraft made only one brief flight, on...
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Archibald said:
It would have needed turboprops - big and powerful ones. How about the T35, for a start ? http://www.enginehistory.org/GasTurbines/Wright/T35/WrightT35.shtml
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I think, that H-4 is nice aircraft, but in any case - it couldn't be useful for amy purpose.
It has been intended for trasport troops and supplies, but at the time of it's maiden flight need to such huge, slow and expensive transport vanished.
Martin Mars flying boats luckily found their role as firefighting aircraft, so there is no place for another, one-off-a-kind example, in the postwar time.
Martin Company has great experience in flying boat design, many types built in mass production.
Howard Hughes, if I remember correctly, only managed to build prototypes of questionable design.
Luckily, his deeds not limited by them!
 
And R-4360 had overheat tendency.
 
I'm looking for photos of the aircraft before it was painted which show the arrangement of the plywood panels or any drawing depicting the same. I have a few but they're not comprehensive. Please post 'em if you've got them. Thanks.
 
Hi!

This Day in Tech: The Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" flies Nov. 2, 1947

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2011/11/1102howard-hughes-spruce-goose/ I visited the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon in late August and had the opportunity to see the "Goose" in person. It's enormous! For $50 or so you can sit in the pilot's seat and have your picture...
eaaforums.org
airandspace.si.edu

Hughes H-4 (HK-1) Hercules ("Spruce Goose"). photograph

airandspace.si.edu airandspace.si.edu

hughes hk 1 spruce goose 6 - BlueprintBox.com - Free Plans and Blueprints of Cars, Trailers, Ships, Airplanes, Jets, Scifi and more...

BlueprintBox.com - Free Plans and Blueprints of Cars, Trailers, Ships, Airplanes, Jets, Scifi and more...
blueprintbox.com blueprintbox.com

Google Wants Howard Hughes' Gigantic Old Hangar

Building 15, a gargantuan aerospace structure outside LAX airport, was once used to construct the Spruce Goose. Soon, it might be home to another focal point of hubris, the Wall Street Journal reports.
valleywag.gawker.com
 

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That drawing of the H-4 on the handling trolley will be very useful --- thanks for posting that. When I was at the museum I had quite a long chat with one of the curators, and this was what some of my questions were about.
 
I have a question regarding this gigantic plane. We know it only flew once and only a few meters above the water, while using likely the strongest aircraft engines available at the time, the 3.000hp variant of the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major.
Now were calculations made of how strong engines would be required to fly it to it's destined maximal range with maximum freight?
Would the ultimate development of the Wasp Major, the 4.300hp R-4360-51 VDT could provide enough extra power? Or even a stronger engine was required? Say 5-6.000hp ones? Like the Lycoming XR-7755?
 
Tzoli said:
I have a question regarding this gigantic plane. We know it only flew once and only a few meters above the water, while using likely the strongest aircraft engines available at the time, the 3.000hp variant of the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major.
Now were calculations made of how strong engines would be required to fly it to it's destined maximal range with maximum freight?
Would the ultimate development of the Wasp Major, the 4.300hp R-4360-51 VDT could provide enough extra power? Or even a stronger engine was required? Say 5-6.000hp ones? Like the Lycoming XR-7755?
Click to expand...
The H-4 is listed as having a 400000 lb gross weight. With 8 engines of 3000 HP this is 16.7 lbs per horsepower. The XPB2M / JRM Mars calculates as having 16.5 lbs per horsepower. The Short Sunderland III calculates as having 13.6 lbs per horsepower, the Kawanishi H8K2 had 9.7 lbs per horsepower. Depending on the level of performance expected the H-4 either had roughly enough HP or could have used engines having 4200 to 5000 HP.
 
I know by the time Hughes lifted the H-4 off the water the US military was generally no longer interested but wouldn't NACA or someone have been interested in doing some flight testing simply because it was such a large aircraft with that (on-paper at least) could carry a whole lot? Or was there really just really nothing worthwhile to be learned there?
 
By the time the flight happened the whole world had changed. Cutback was order of the day and Korea had not happened yet, yet alone the full scale of the cold war. So many changes of mind and projects abandoned.
 
I'm curious, was the one and only 'hop' only a hop because Hughes was being ultra careful (shades of XF-11 in his mind?) or because it really wouldn't fly? In theory it should have had ample horsepower to get it going.
 
Hood said:
I'm curious, was the one and only 'hop' only a hop because Hughes was being ultra careful (shades of XF-11 in his mind?) or because it really wouldn't fly? In theory it should have had ample horsepower to get it going.
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It was a taxi test. It wasn't supposed to fly *at* *all.* Hughes likely knew that it would be his only chance to demonstrate that the thing could actually fly, at least before Congress jumped up and down on him.
 
Orionblamblam said:
It was a taxi test. It wasn't supposed to fly *at* *all.* Hughes likely knew that it would be his only chance to demonstrate that the thing could actually fly, at least before Congress jumped up and down on him.
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Thanks for clarifying it was a taxi test.
We could speculate if he hadn't crashed the XF-11 and been heavily censured, that he might have been more tempted to "accidently" pull the stick further back to get properly airborne.

I can't shake off the feeling Hughes missed his vocation in life, had he not messed about with Hollywood and instead dedicated his life to aviation and engineering he could easily have become America's equivalent of 'Teddy' Petter - brilliant but eccentric.
 
Foo Fighter said:
By the time the flight happened the whole world had changed. Cutback was order of the day and Korea had not happened yet, yet alone the full scale of the cold war. So many changes of mind and projects abandoned.
Click to expand...

And yet the Martin Mars survived against all odds, to astonishing careers (imagine a firebomber Spruce Goose !) :eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
Well he Mars was a 1938 program and flew in 1942 1hile the Hughes H-4 did not even get underway program wise until 1942 and only one hop in 1947. Allowing for being brought up to production standard, there is no way of knowing when a first flight let alone service could be achieved. Many programs further on than this failed to proceed.
 
While chatting with a curator at the Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon (where the HK-1 is now), he told me in that flight it very nearly ended up with a different result. He said the tail almost ripped itself off and Hughes was fortunate to get it down when he did.
Afterwards they re-enforced the tail assembly connection with fish-plates but it was never flown again.

The curator then said that the engineers put it down to engine resonance that caused the problem. There is a book the museum sells that goes into it and I was going to buy it but it was out of stock when I was there. Keep meaning to buy a copy though --
 

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kitnut617 said:
While chatting with a curator at the Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon (where the HK-1 is now), he told me in that flight it very nearly ended up with a different result. He said the tail almost ripped itself off and Hughes was fortunate to get it down when he did.
Afterwards they re-enforced the tail assembly connection with fish-plates but it was never flown again.

The curator then said that the engineers put it down to engine resonance that caused the problem. There is a book the museum sells that goes into it and I was going to buy it but it was out of stock when I was there. Keep meaning to buy a copy though --
Click to expand...

Well it happened to the French Laté 631 giant flying boats - 11 build at tremendous expense for next to nothing. They had very severe flutters problem, props reasonance with the wings. If you remember Lockheed Electra crashes in the late 50's - a trio of Laté similarly fell into pieces from the sky, killing way too many people (at least three - 1948 in the atlantic, 1950 near Bordeaux, 1955 in Africa - from memory).
 
Colonial-Marine said:
I know by the time Hughes lifted the H-4 off the water the US military was generally no longer interested but wouldn't NACA or someone have been interested in doing some flight testing simply because it was such a large aircraft with that (on-paper at least) could carry a whole lot? Or was there really just really nothing worthwhile to be learned there?
Click to expand...
I believe that Hughes had a poor reputation at that point, as did his patent Duramold construction method. He was known for over-promising and under-delivering, while spending vast sums and being difficult to work with. He'd managed to foist the unwanted D-3/D-5 aircraft on the war department in this way. In the course of that project, Duramold had proved unsatisfactory as a material for building large, high-performance aircraft.

Since a large, eight-engined flying boat that included no valuable construction innovations had little to teach anyone at that point, I doubt that NACA would have been interested.
 
When you enter the museum from the foyer, this is what greets you (first pic) and a view from the cabin entrance door looking aft
 

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Hood said:

I can't shake off the feeling Hughes missed his vocation in life, had he not messed about with Hollywood and instead dedicated his life to aviation and engineering he could easily have become America's equivalent of 'Teddy' Petter - brilliant but eccentric.
Click to expand...
Hughes was a wealthy playboy at heart, and a dilletante, even if he did achieve more than one might expect from the type. He inherited a fortune at 19. His interests in movie making and aircraft manufacture were much the same as his interests in starlets, air racing, and golf: they were hobbies. Hughes focused on what he wanted, not on requirements or practical concerns. He built his one really successful aircraft design--the brilliant H-1-- purely as the vehicle of his own racing triumphs.He bought Duramold (from Fairchild, I think) and used it on large military aircraft simply because he thought it was interesting, and he stuck with it even as its impracticalities became clear. In the D-2, DX-2, DX-2A, D-3, D-5, XA-37, and XP-73, he designed his idea of a military aircraft, rather than consider any military organization's requirements. It was variously claimed to be a fighter, bomber, and attack aircraft while never being suitable for any real role. It was effectively a big racer with poor structural design. That he was allowed to continue with the XF-11 probably owed more to his personal and political connections than it did to his or his aircraft's virtues.
 
Apart from the H-4, do any other Hughes aircraft of the time survive?
 
Archibald said:
kitnut617 said:
While chatting with a curator at the Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon (where the HK-1 is now), he told me in that flight it very nearly ended up with a different result. He said the tail almost ripped itself off and Hughes was fortunate to get it down when he did.
Afterwards they re-enforced the tail assembly connection with fish-plates but it was never flown again.

The curator then said that the engineers put it down to engine resonance that caused the problem. There is a book the museum sells that goes into it and I was going to buy it but it was out of stock when I was there. Keep meaning to buy a copy though --
Click to expand...

Well it happened to the French Laté 631 giant flying boats - 11 build at tremendous expense for next to nothing. They had very severe flutters problem, props reasonance with the wings. If you remember Lockheed Electra crashes in the late 50's - a trio of Laté similarly fell into pieces from the sky, killing way too many people (at least three - 1948 in the atlantic, 1950 near Bordeaux, 1955 in Africa - from memory).
Click to expand...
Add to the calculation flaws and the lack of reliability of the engines (and the low maximum continuous power), a total ignorance at the time of the effects of aeroelasticity on the aging of metallic materials !
 
iverson said:
Hood said:

I can't shake off the feeling Hughes missed his vocation in life, had he not messed about with Hollywood and instead dedicated his life to aviation and engineering he could easily have become America's equivalent of 'Teddy' Petter - brilliant but eccentric.
Click to expand...
Hughes was a wealthy playboy at heart, and a dilletante, even if he did achieve more than one might expect from the type. He inherited a fortune at 19. His interests in movie making and aircraft manufacture were much the same as his interests in starlets, air racing, and golf: they were hobbies. Hughes focused on what he wanted, not on requirements or practical concerns. He built his one really successful aircraft design--the brilliant H-1-- purely as the vehicle of his own racing triumphs.He bought Duramold (from Fairchild, I think) and used it on large military aircraft simply because he thought it was interesting, and he stuck with it even as its impracticalities became clear. In the D-2, DX-2, DX-2A, D-3, D-5, XA-37, and XP-73, he designed his idea of a military aircraft, rather than consider any military organization's requirements. It was variously claimed to be a fighter, bomber, and attack aircraft while never being suitable for any real role. It was effectively a big racer with poor structural design. That he was allowed to continue with the XF-11 probably owed more to his personal and political connections than it did to his or his aircraft's virtues.
Click to expand...

You forgot the most important one; he thought radar was cool.
 
I don't know if Hughes H-4 was built all in alluminum how many weight could be had been .
 
Back in the '90s I was taking a drive from Portland, OR to the coast on a two-lane road. Went by this prefab building in the woods. It had a pad on which were a couple of helicopters and a huge, cocooned nose section of some airplane. The whole setup was weird--why was any of it out there? My first thought was that the nose came off a 747, but a while later its real identity dawned on me. It made me sad--I assumed it would sit around rotting, and the Spruce Goose would be no more. Imagine my shock to read of the Evergreen Museum a few years after that.
 

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