If the 'Spruce Goose' could fly, how effective would it have been ?

GrauGeist · Jul 23, 2011

BAGTIC said:
...Also it never flew as it never got oiut of ground effect. It was a giant WIG or glorified hovercraft..

Perhaps you missed the earlier posts in the discussion regarding this, but the aircraft did in fact get airborn.

While the altitude wasn't significent (at all), it was still airborn.

FLYBOYJ · Jul 23, 2011

BAGTIC said:
THe Hughes H-K 4 Hercules was not made of spruce. It was made of birch.
Also it never flew as it never got oiut of ground effect. It was a giant WIG or glorified hovercraft..

Ground effect is usually an altitude about the wingspan of the aircraft in question and at a speed at or below Vs or Vso. It flew 70 feet at a speed in access of 135 mph so it was well out of ground effect as you put it.

Messy1 · Jul 25, 2011

BAGTIC said:
THe Hughes H-K 4 Hercules was not made of spruce. It was made of birch.
Also it never flew as it never got oiut of ground effect. It was a giant WIG or glorified hovercraft..

So going along with your thinking about the H4, would you also say the Wright brothers never flew at Kittyhawk either, seeing as their flights were only 10 feet or so off of the ground and only 125, 175. and 200 ft in length?

davparlr · Jul 26, 2011

Interestingly, when I first saw the Hughes aircraft I was not particularly overawed. I had seen large flying boats before. Note the almost six foot tall man under the aircraft in the picture. The engine must be fifteen to eighteen feet above the ground. Also note, as large as this plane is, it only has two engines! I believe this is a Martin P5M.

evangilder · Jul 26, 2011

Looks like a P5M to me too, Dave. That thing is a monster!

parsifal · Jul 28, 2011

An aircraft that did make my jaw drop because of its sheer size was at the Sydney airshow more than 20 years agao......the AN-124. Can carry up to 150 tons in one load.....thats up to three MBTs in one hit....... I rememember looking at it parked next to a boeing 747 and thinking how small the boeing looked next to it.

As the song says.....Oh those russians....

icepac · Aug 5, 2011

Hughes just wanted to prove what could be done in spite of wartime shortages of strategic materials.

He chose to achieve this with an airplane people thought could not be built without huge amounts of aluminum.

I think it was a F.U. to the establishment from the beginning.

If the 'Spruce Goose' could fly, how effective would it have been ?

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