I love airplanes, but my brother Bisckits adores them. So he couldn’t have been happier when, during a West Coast roadtrip from Seattle to San Francisco, we called in to see a very special aircraft.
Just outside McMinnville, Oregon, is the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. It has an incredible collection of air and spacecraft. But it’s pride and joy is the Hughes HK-1 (H4) Flying Boat.
This aircraft is special for so many reasons. Firstly, it’s a unique, one-of-a-kind, never to be copied, prototype.
Secondly, due to wartime restrictions placed on the designers, it is built almost entirely of wood.
Thirdly, at over 218 feet long, with a wingspan of almost 320 feet and a height of more than 79 feet, it’s the biggest airplane ever built.
The original idea came from businessman Henry Kaiser in 1942, but it was the famous film director Howard Hughes that actually designed and built the aircraft.

… including this replica of the famous Sprit of St. Louis, the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic at the hands of Charles Lindbergh, just 20 years before the Spruce Goose‘s brief flight
The Hughes Flying Boat has been called many names, not least of which is the Hercules, because of its size. But it’s best known as the Spruce Goose, a belittling nickname given to it by the press of the time, which Hughes hated. It’s also inaccurate, since the ‘Spruce Goose’ is actually mostly constructed of birch wood.
During a test taxi run in Long Beach Harbor, California, on November 2nd, 1947, Hughes (who was at the controls) made the unauthorised decision to take off. In that moment, the Hughes Flying Boat went from simply being the biggest airplane ever constructed, to being the biggest airplane ever to fly.
The Spruce Goose flew above the waves for around one minute, covering a distance of about a mile. Hughes had proved to the World that his massive flying boat could fly, even though it would never do so again.
Nevertheless, Hughes kept his beloved creation air-worthy until his death in 1976, just in case. Afterwards, it was displayed in a museum in Long Beach, before finally moving to its current home in Oregon, where it went on display in 2001
Although the Hughes Flying Boat was mocked in its day by the press and Howard Hughes’ critics, Bisckits and I think it’s Exceptional. We couldn’t have been happier to see, and even go inside, the Spruce Goose.
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This post was inspired by the photo themes of Happy from Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Scale and Exceptional from The Daily Post and Names from Ailsa of Where’s My Backpack?
You took the tour. I’ve been to that museum many times. Great photos.
I thought it was in your neck of the woods, Cee. It’s a wonderful museum, isn’t it?
So cool. I love planes too. I never made it to that museum when I lived in the pnw 😦 but at least I made it to the museum of flight. I felt like a kid at toys r us.
I visited the Museum of Flight in Seattle on the same roadtrip, Mani. I loved that one too. Have you been to the US Air Force Museum in Dayton?
No. Just that one I’ve been able to visit. And a bit different – the cosmonaut museum in Moscow 🙂
Very cool! I’ve been to the Kennedy Space Center (I even saw a shuttle launch) and all the major aircraft museums in the UK, but the Cosmonaut Museum sounds fantastic. I also hope to get to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at New Year.
So fun. I’d live to visit every one of them.
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Thanks i heard about this plane but now i know about this plane.
I hope you get to see it one day, Abrie!
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Wow great photos!
Thanks M.B.!