Hughes H-4 Hercules - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The Hughes H-4 Hercules ("Spruce Goose"), dubbed "The Edsel of Aviation", is an aircraft which was designed and built by Howard Hughes' Hughes Aircraft company. Its first and only flight took place in 1947. Hughes himself detested the nickname "Spruce Goose". The nickname arose as a way of mocking the Hercules project due to Hughes' alleged misuse of government funding to build the aircraft. The Hercules is the largest flying boat, and still holds the record for the largest wingspan of any aircraft in history. Only one was ever built.
Due to wartime restrictions on the availability of metals, the H-4 was built almost entirely of laminated birch, not spruce as its nickname suggests. The aircraft was a technological marvel of its time. It married a soon-to-be outdated technology, flying boats, to a massive airframe that required some truly ingenious engineering innovations to function.
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