Spruce Goose Fun Facts
Click on an image to see a larger version
- The wingspan is longer than a football field
- If you place the Hughes
Flying Boat
on top of a football field, the wing tips would extend
ten feet over both end zones. The nost and tail would
extend well into the spectator sections.
- The tail span is wider than the wingspan of a Boeing B17
- The
Flying Boat
has a tail span of 113.5 feet, while the wingspan of a B-17
is 103.75 feet.
- The tail is as tall as an eight story building
- The vertical tail rises nearly 80 feet into the air, the same
as an eight story building.
- Beach balls filled the floats
- Hundreds of beach balls were used to fill the empty spaces
in the back of the hull and in the floats under the wings, to
ensure buoyancy in case of an accident.
- The "Spruce Goose" is really made of birch
- The term "Spruce Goose", coined by the press, was detested by
Howard Hughes. The aircraft is mostly made of duramold, using
laminated layers of birch veneer. Glued together under heat
and pressure, this plywood is so strong that if a piece of duramold
is broken, it does not split along the glue lines.
- Millions of nails were used, then removed
- To shape and form the wooden pieces needed to create the
Flying Boat,
seven tons of small nails were used. Once the glue set, workers
removed every nail.
- Wing walking takes on a whole new meaning
- A tall man can walk upright INSIDE the wings, though he would
have to crawl to get to the very tips. During its only
flight on November 2, 1947, crew members were in the wings, as
observers of engine operations.
- One pound of exertion equalled 1,500 pounds of pressure
- To move control surfaces that were gigantic and very far away from
the pilot, Hughes' and his engineers' revolutionary design
achieved the greatest boost ratio ever installed on an aircraft.
For each pound of pressure exerted on the control yoke by the pilot,
the elevator received 1,500 pounds of pressure to move it.
Updated at 20:48 EST on Thu Nov 9, 2006
