Spruce Goose, Long Beach, 1947
The Spruce Goose is the largest wooden airplane ever constructed. It served as a prototype for a strategic airlift flying boat, and was a joint project of Howard Hughes and Henry Kaiser. It was six times larger than any aircraft of its time, and the until 2019, had the largest wingspan of any plane that ever flew.
The plane was made entirely of birch and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company at Hughes Airport, location of present-day Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California. It made only one brief flight on November 2, 1947, in the Port of Long Beach. The Hughes H-4 Hercules project never advanced beyond the Spruce Goose prototype.
The Spruce Goose makes a notable appearance in the 2004 film The Aviator, where a flyable scale model of the plane with a 20-foot wingspan was lovingly reproduced and shown taking off on the same waters as the original.
