The Spruce Goose

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The H-4 Hercules was an aircraft built by Howard Hughes during world war 2, The idea behind it was to ship large amount of cargo across the Atlantic safely above German war ships. The whole project ran overtime and over budget and by the time the only prototype flew in 1947 the war was over and funding was cancelled. The media nicknamed the plane the Spruce Goose because of this and the fact that it was made of wood as there was no metal available because of the war. Howard Hughes hated the nickname and set it out on its only flight just to prove a point, amazingly for a prototype aircraft of its age and huge size it remain cared for and in hidden storage until 1980 where it spent some time next to the Queen Mary. Since 1995 its home has been the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon which is an hour southwest of Portland. The museum has a good range of other aircraft that are well worth checking out too.Website of the Evergreen Aviation Museum  

http://www.sprucegoose.org/