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#Onthisday in 1947, Howard Hughes embarked on a test flight of the huge Hughes H-4 Hercules (nicknamed the Spruce Goose) to prove it could fly. The Spruce Goose was one of the largest planes ever constructed and was the largest wooden plane ever built. It was intended as a wartime aircraft to move troops and material across the Atlantic Ocean. On November 2, 1947, off the coast of San Pedro, California, the Hughes H-4 Hercules took off and covered only a mile, at an altitude of 70 feet. The only one of its kind and only flown the one time, the prototype now resides on display in the Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon. Image: Spruce Goose, 1947. Gift of Frank A. Norick. 2009.015.003 This image was posted on November 02, 2020.