#22: Spruce Goose. Then the largest US plane. Never got off the ground. A Howard Hughes fiasco.
The Germans had a larger seaplane that actually did fly and I met the American pilot that destroyed it in WW2. He also shot down two ME262’s one on the ground and one taking off.
His name possibly was George Drew. You can see a front camera film from his P-47 when he blew up a train in France full of ammo. The flames scorched his underside and wings.
Sorry, but it did. Howard flew it for about about a mile during taxi tests on 2 Nov ‘47 with crew and some reporters aboard. Just search on “Spruce Goose” on Wikipedia for more details.
Hughes H-4 Hercules
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_auaeK2B7g
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Let’s talk about the Glomar Explorer!
Au contraire — Howard Hughes flew the Spruce Goose just long enough to lift it off the water, to silence his detractors. I suppose, since it was a sea plane, saying it never got off the ground technically is correct.
http://fly.historicwings.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/HighFlight-SpruceGoose2.jpg
Hughes tried to build the plane out of wood, which was not considered a strategic material, in order to maximize the number of troops who could be moved and minimize the amount of time it took to move them. Of course, he had a different standard for flying craft, having crashed a number of them.
