One of the largest planes ever made took its first and only flight 78 years ago in California

The Hercules, better known as the Spruce Goose, remains one of the largest planes ever made, and one of the most fascinating one-hit wonders in aviation history.

It was a machine so massive, so ambitious, and so improbable that it became legend after spending just 30 seconds in the air.

Now, 78 years later, it still captures imaginations not because of what it achieved, but because of what it represented.

Built by eccentric tycoon Howard Hughes, the Spruce Goose was part dream, part obsession, and all spectacle.

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The Spruce Goose was made almost entirely of wood

The story began during World War II, when the US government needed a way to transport troops and cargo across the Atlantic without risking attacks on steel ships.

Enter Howard Hughes: a maverick businessman, film director, and engineer who was basically the Tony Stark of the time.

He thought he could build a flying ship bigger and better than anything before it, so he got to work.

The result was the Hughes H-4 Hercules: a flying boat with a wingspan of nearly 320 feet (that’s longer than a football field) and powered by eight massive radial engines.

It was constructed almost entirely from wood.

While it may seem like an odd choice, wartime metal restrictions meant that he had to get creative.

Ironically, that creativity also gave the Hercules its enduring nickname, the ‘Spruce Goose’.

Despite being mostly made from birch, not spruce, the nickname stuck, much to Hughes’ eternal irritation.

He hated it, insisting the airplane was an engineering marvel, not a punchline.

Interestingly, it seems the public is fond of giving nicknames to ridiculously-sized aircraft, as another giant plane was christened the ‘Super Guppy’.

It was one of the largest planes ever made… and it actually flew

By the time the Hercules was completed, the war was long over and the need for such a giant transporter had vanished.

But Hughes wasn’t about to let one of the largest planes ever made fade quietly into the background.

On November 2, 1947, in Long Beach, California, he climbed into the cockpit himself and actually flew it, to the shock of everyone present.

The flight lasted less than a minute, reaching about 70 feet above the water, but it was enough to prove the doubters wrong: the Spruce Goose could fly.

After that brief moment of glory, the Hercules never left the ground again.

Hughes kept it meticulously preserved until his death.

Today, it lives on at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in Oregon, as a giant wooden reminder that sometimes, the wildest dreams only need a few seconds in the air to make history.

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