Detailed tour through the Spruce Goose! - the Hughes H-4 Hercules.

hello and behind me is the hughes h4 hercules which is a massive cargo sea plant built towards the end of world war ii so the united states were supplying their european allies during the war but a lot of those ships were being sunk by a german submarine so someone came up with the idea of why don't we fly the cargo over and then that's how this aircraft came about and in this video i'm going to take you on a detailed tour of it first we're going to walk around the outside and i'm going to explain what's unique and interesting and then we're going to crawl up into the cockpit and i'll show you what it's like in there so let's get into it i make videos about planes this includes trip reports onboard flights from around the world and i also make detailed tours crawling through significant aircraft in museums i'm also on instagram and facebook the first point i really want to make is that this video footage really doesn't show how massive this aircraft really is it's huge by 2022 standards let alone the 1940s to give you a bit of an idea here's a douglas dc-3 which was a big aircraft of that era although you can see how it just pales into insignificance next to the massive h4 hercules in fact it had the longest wingspan of any aircraft ever up until 2019 when the six-engined strato launcher was created let's start at the rear and we'll work our way forward and then inside at 113 feet and six inches the tail span of these horizontal stabilizers is actually longer than a b-17 flying fortresses total wingspan and the whole tail would flex three feet either left or right because it's so high above where i'm standing it really makes everything seem smaller and you'll notice that when i get to the engines which look tiny it had the world's first hydraulically actuated control systems because the control surfaces were all massive and therefore heavy and it would be impossible for a human to operate without any assistance and we'll see more of that hydraulic system once we get inside while howard hughes was a designer and contributed financially as well the idea was created by a ship builder called henry j kaiser they plan to produce an aircraft capable of carrying 68 tonnes of cargo which would equate to 750 troops or two m4 sherman tanks it was powered by eight pratt whitney r 4360 wasp major 28 cylinder engines and again because they're so far above me they look tiny now here's the same engines on a boeing c97 strato freighter at pima which look much larger attached to a smaller aircraft these produced around 3000 horsepower and consumed 109 gallons of fuel per hour at cruise speed they were fitted with four bladed hamilton standard propellers which were 17 feet and two inches in diameter the aircraft was initially called the hk-1 recognising both hughes and kaiser working together it was nicknamed the spruce goose although howard hughes wasn't a fan of that name and it wasn't made of spruce wood anyway in fact it was made of birch although the other name still stuck the reason why it was built out of wood was simply because there were wartime restrictions on aluminium and there were concerns that a metal plane of that size simply would be too heavy to fly hughes used a creative new way of making the birch stronger by using laminated layers of it glued together under heat and pressure thus creating what was called dura mold during the assembly seven tons of nails were used to hold it together but when the glue set they removed the nails to reduce the weight kaiser struggled through the early design stages becoming increasingly frustrated with the limitations placed on it by the government since it wasn't seen as a military priority the other frustration was hugh's perfectionism and while it did drive him to design a good aircraft he was difficult to work with about 16 months after the project was approved kaiser resigned leaving hughes to continue it alone the aircraft was renamed the h4 hercules and hughes signed a new deal with the government to build just one example instead of the three originally ordered as it became obvious that the war was coming to an end the build continued with many lengthy delays and it wasn't until 1947 that it was assembled and ready for testing two years after the war had ended an obvious question is why they went with a flying boat when most other large aircraft of that era were land based now the maximum takeoff weight was 400 000 pounds which compares to just 135 000 pounds for the b-29 so airports just weren't equipped to carry such large aircraft now the later b-36 had a similar maximum takeoff weight although it was also initially limited to a small number of particularly large airports eventually the infrastructure did improve and it wasn't a problem but in 1942 when this thing was being designed they concluded that a flying boat design was better the aircraft only flew once and it's unclear if it was intentional on to november 2nd 1947 with hughes at the controls and 14 media and industry reps on board hughes took them all for some taxi testing after picking up some speed it lifted off the water for around 26 seconds at 70 ft for around one mile senators were grilling him about the potential waste of money so this proved that the aircraft could at least fly and his footage of its logbook recording the moment it's reported that hughes did hope to fly it again and it was maintained for many years in flying conditioned and in a massive climb controlled hangar but with worsening health other aviation related incidents and further financial woes kept him distracted until his death in 1976. now let's go inside this beauty and first we'll take a right turn and check out the aft section there's a window in the way so i'll make do with some zooming the ladder that you can see here on the left was initially the only means of accessing the upper deck although it was later replaced by a spiral staircase that will be going up shortly so it's been put back here for safe keeping you'll notice a lot of beach balls and these were there for supplemental flotation if the aircraft was damaged and at risk of sinking above is the wing spa which was metal so it wasn't all made of wood and obviously the mechanical cables and fuel systems were all metal these red cylinders here are the fire control system which was particularly important in a wooden aircraft these were installed after the first flight with four cylinders per engine but before that the engineers would simply carry portable fire extinguishers themselves directly below where you're looking now is a hatch into the fuel tanks there were 14 1000 gallon fuel tanks and you can see one of these on the left now as i said earlier each engine uses around 100 gallons an hour so i'll let you calculate the range spinning around we'll look up at the roof where you can see the inner workings including a lot of wires and cables again it's difficult to appreciate it on camera but having been inside a dc-3 and other aircraft from that era you can only imagine how impressive the size of this must have been now we'll move forward and into the guided section which requires an additional tour to be booked it was originally designed to have the nose open up as you can see in this model so that the equipment could be loaded in a similar fashion to many large freighters now including the c5 galaxy and the 747 freighter this was also why the cockpit is in the upper deck and up and away from the luggage level and the planned clam shelled doors directly in front is the electrical panel with the doors open so that you can see the 1940s technology the guy sitting here had this one lever to pull which would cut the electricity if there was a fire and in front of that is part of the hydraulic system now as i said earlier this was the first aircraft with hydraulically actuated control surfaces so for every pound of pressure exerted on the control yoke by the pilot the elevator received 1500 pounds of pressure to move it by the hydraulic system now you can see all these thicker piping everywhere and those were the hydraulic lines and looking up above you now is the pilot's seat and these cables are connected between his yoke and pedals and the control surfaces this circular device and there's another one just behind it is the automatic direction finder which was an old navigation system now you'll see this under a lot of older aircraft although obviously they couldn't attach it to the underside of this one as it would be washed off during landing and takeoff the system worked by having ground based beacons which could be the destination airport for example all across the world and they sent out radio messages which then the aircraft could detect and provide a constant bearing towards it we'll now head up the spiral staircase which again was added afterwards as it initially just had that ladder which i pointed out earlier so here we are in the upper deck of the spruce goose and it's an absolute pleasure getting inside of this the staff at the evergreen air and space museum in oregon have done an incredible job keeping the aircraft in great shape and open for aviation enthusiasts to get inside of here is the propeller test station and that guy would simply be watching the rpm of all eight engines let's check out the back of the upper deck and there are two apus which were four cylinder engines attached to generators now they would power the electrical systems and also fire up engine number one once that single engine was going it could then be used to start the other seven engines spinning around you've got a ladder up to the crew observation spot where the engineers could observe each engine and also help as the aircraft docked this was the auxiliary oil tank which could pump out to any other oil tank if that particular engine was burning through more than usual and those 28-cylinder engines had a lot of moving parts so keeping them well oiled was very important looking forward is the wing root you could crawl through the small hole here and you can see that there's many lines for fuel oil hydraulic systems and other controls for the four engines on each side and moving around this way you can see right into the wing and this pathway could be used by engineers to reach all eight engines during the flight now it's hard to get the proportions in this video but at 180 centimeters myself i could easily have stood up inside the wing and spinning back around will move our way further forwards there's a whole lot of seats in here for the journalists government and aviation industry officials now on that single flight they actually had 32 people on board and 22 of these were flight crew and 10 others now this glass wall here was put in afterwards and wasn't original this was from when it was on display in the dome in long beach and people would peer in from a platform on the outside although i'll admit that it does provide an incredible view of that engine number four from in here this position here was the assistant flight engineer and if you look closely you'll see additional dials that they could help monitor now remember that there were no computers that go ping if something went wrong and they relied upon humans to closely watch and shout out if some numbers were outside a parameter these here are flight test equipment including strain and vibration guides from around the aircraft they put these sensors in particular positions such as the hull or wings etc and then they would all feed into this station where they could be monitored and documented as they didn't know what to expect from such a large wooden structure the next station was recording parameters from the eight engines now moving forward was the radio and navigator's position as this was designed to cross large expanses of ocean this guy's job was very important and they had a lot of desk space to use multiple different maps and here i am getting into the pilot seat the actual chair that howard hughes sat in for the 1947 flight sticking your head out of the window gives you an incredible view and also highlights how tall you are from the ground and seeing those four props lined up really is an iconic sight this pipe here delivered cold air directly onto howard hughes's neck now while he was a brilliant designer he was an eccentric man and had to be kept as comfortable as possible here's all of the usual flight controls and dials is the number of cubic inches in the cylinders each engine had 28 cylinders another cool part of the tour is being allowed to stick your head up out through the hatch above you as we'll well over to the co-pilot seat and this was certainly more sparse in contrast with the b-17 for example which had more dials than the pilots whose main role was just flying now from all accounts hughes was quite keen to be in control and aware of what's happening and this cockpit layout was reflective of that and behind them was the flight engineer's position here you can see eight columns of dials for each individual engines and controls below for the throttle hydraulics and electrical systems moving around you have the fuel and oil management system and then the electrical systems that's it for the upper deck and the tour of this incredible aircraft it really was mind-blowing just how large the aircraft is especially when you consider that it was built in the 1940s the boeing 747 antonov an225 the airbus a380 all had smaller wingspans and while they may have been bigger in other parameters it was still very special to see everything i've seen today can be done in their vip tour which you can book when you arrive or check out their website for more details if you enjoyed the video please give it a thumbs up and check out my channel for many more similar videos thanks for watching

Channel: Paul Stewart

Views: 763,981

Keywords: airplane, plane, planes, spruce goose, flying timberyard, evergreen air and space museum, vehicle, howard hughes, h-4, h-4 hercules, hughes H-4 hercules, paul stewart, aviation documentary, aviation tour, avgeek, sprucegoose, spruce-goose

Id: zwniLHX-KTc

Length: 13min 33sec (813 seconds)

Published: Fri May 06 2022