Hughes' H-4 Hercules Flies! (1947) | 4k Up-scaled
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- Footage of the famous flight of Howard Hughes's flying boat, the H4 Hercules! It flew for about a mile at an altitude of 70 feet over Long Beach Harbor. Hughes wanted to prove his airplane was no "Spruce Goose" ...that it really could fly. And indeed, he shocked the world when he pulled back on the yoke that day. The Hercules maintained itself as the airplane with the largest wingspan until the Stratolaunch was unveiled in 2019! But it still holds the record as the world's largest flying boat.
This video was made by taking a soundless newsreel and combining it with the audio from another newsreel.
To learn about the history and creation of this plane, be sure to check out my mini-documentary:
ruclips.net/video/n3D8q3bHiRc/видео.html
My uncle was there in Long Beach harbor that day. He said he couldn't believe it when he saw the "huge flying boat" lift off. What an exciting experience.
My grandfather was there in the navy he saw it fly must have been amazing to see.
@adamsharris1275 I'm glad they had news film of the event and reporters on board
So amazing. Americas history is so sweet.
My dad was there as well…. He was in the navy, he was on LST-1138
really impressive
The man was a phenomenal spirit and contributions to aviation was so underrated.
I finally saw it at the Evergreen air museum in Oregon. Spectacular machine.
It's a shame that people mocked this aircraft. It is an incredible feat of engineering, given the shortage of aluminum. If he had access to normal materials, this aircraft would have surely been completed in time to actually enter service.
Agree.
Back then it's kinda hard to blame people for thinking that an absolute fucking monster of a plane like that couldn't fly. The earliest planes were wood, sure, but they were way, way, way, way, smaller and everyone knew that much. They also knew that we used aluminum and that it was far lighter than wood. I'd bet that there'd have been tons who thought he was nuts even if the beast was aluminum, because nothing came close to that size. The wingspan of that hadn't been exceeded until ~5 years ago (2019 from 2024 at time of commenting) and that to me shouldn't even count because it's basically two fucking planes fused together (two fuselages)
After 7 months, finally we have a spruce goose video
Very soon, there will be more to come
Missed it at the dome next to the QM.
@@riparianlife97701 HI JAMES BELIEVE ME,,,, WE SAW HER TWICE SHE LOOKED A LITTLE SICK YEARS LATER SHE WASNT TAKEN CARE OF THAT GREAT !!! NOW SHES THE BIG GOOSE IN A GREAT NEW HOME... THANKS FOR ALEX VIDEOS TO SEE HER.. PEACE!!!!
I remember the first time I saw that Plane. 1984, when she was housed next the QM. It was awesome sitting inside the dome. Those were fun times.
The story reminds me of the story of Tucker, which was also made into a movie. Hughes was accused of wasting money on a plane that didn't fly, so he flew it. Tucker was convicted of not making cars, so he had 50 cars waiting in front of the courthouse to take the judge, jury and press for a ride before his sentencing.
BRO IVE BEEN LOOKING EVERYWHERE! what is the movie called with hudson ??
@@hufroma4054 Oh my god I'm so sorry. Tucker.
@@hufroma4054 "Tucker: A Man And His Dream". Good flick! Innovators often face not just technical and business challenges, but public-acceptance challenges
Will have coffee at the ready.......... From the quality of your past work I'm sure it will be outstanding.
I remember visiting my family in McMinnville in 1999 and seeing the Spruce Goose completely taken apart at an Evergreen museum in a large hangar. My Dad is a pilot and we were able to go in and look at it as kids, before its assembly at the new museum. Cool memories!
HI ALEX,, GREAT BIG BIRD IN THE SKY AND WATER ,,.. I SAW A SMALLER ONE OF THESE YEARS AGO ,,THE NAME WAS THE DIXIE CLIPPER IN THE 40S ...YOUR LUCKY THIS BIRD IS IN YOUR AREA AND IT HAS A BRAND NEW HOME NOT THAT EGG SHELL,, MY SON MAX CALLS IT IN LONG BEACH.. YEARS AGO.......CHEERS !!!! THANKS....
Nice looking aircraft.
I will look forward to the documentary!
It's already available:
ruclips.net/video/n3D8q3bHiRc/видео.html
@@AlextheHistorian oh, that’s right. I have already watched that
Howard is amazing 👏
Wow huge!!!😎👍
He did it. 💪🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
... the way of the future...
That's quite a nice model, sir.
Hop in!
@@fredspofford But sir...
@@RocKnight11 *pulls gun on you* I said: Hop.. In...!
The movie is The Aviator from Leonardo DiCaprio.
Superbe Hercules hughes 😍💪🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
Cool
Yes it did get airborne but it was built to carry troops and vehicles and supplies to avoid submarines. I doubt it would get much elevation fully loaded.
was it a failure though? it barely flew and with no cargo.
No I would say it was a big success. When Hughes was in the air with it, he turned to his chief engineer and said "boy the flaps really balloon this thing!" Which means it went up in the air a lot easier than he expected.
I believe it could have easily flown fully loaded with cargo. Hughes was a genius, he knew what he was doing.
"Ground Effect" or flying?
They say ground effect, but hey, it got off the water and that's what mattered 🙂
@@AlextheHistorian Indeed it did!
Thats the paper plane from phineas and ferb
Soo 😎
Ground effect, air cushion riding is what Ekranoplans do. Not aircraft that claim to be able to reach a maximum altitude of more than 20 feet.
To be fair, there was never a reason to fly the Hercules above the ground effect. It's never been properly tested so we can't say it couldn't have reached a decent altitude and sustained flight. I think it very well could have. Howard Hughes was an aviation genius and he spent 6 years developing the perfect flying boat.
@AlextheHistorian The reason was that he promised the US government he would deliver an operational Flying Boat. How could this monster carry 700 troops?. Not an cargo-less Ekranoplan with a maximum altitude of 20 feet empty. The cargo-less and stripped incomplete H4 could barely reach 20 feet, pushing the 8 engines and fuselage to almost destruction. It's the fascinating obsession of a fascinating man.
I disagree with that assessment of the flight. Hughes was surprised how easily the plane went into the air. His chief engineer said Hughes barely touched the yoke when it lept into the air. Hughes turned to him and said "boy the flaps really balloon this thing!"
The engines were nowhere near being pushed to their limit. All 8 engines were more than enough to propel the aircraft.
@@AlextheHistorian Nobody's perfect. Almost nobody.
It was awesome when it was in the dome next to the QM, a whole day of fun. LB let the Spruce Goose leave and I'm sure QM days are numbered after the recent lifeboat drama...
If the Queen Mary's days are numbered, then they've just extended it even longer, since she's been undergoing repairs
@@AlextheHistorian What's up with the sub, didn't they stop tours eons ago?
The sub is abandoned yes. The city is trying to find the owner in order to get them to remove it.
Queen Mary is currently being repaired as we speak so her days are not numbered. They are being extended infact.
As for the sub. As alex pointed out the city is still trying to find the owner.
Honestly when it comes to Russian equipment that really does seem to be a major issue, finding out who owns it.
Its to dangerous to cut it apart next to the queen mary so at some point someone has to move it. I wonder if its usable as a reef. I don't think it could survive a journey to open ocean however its likely sink faster than the USS Monitor :P
@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent Sounds good hope LB doesn't give up on her. Why can't they use a crane for the sub?
Hughes reminds me of Ted Turner.
In hindsight I wonder if Howard wished that five engines could have been on each wing.
I doubt it. It's not like he struggled to get it off the water, it lifted right out. His trouble was trying to keep it from going up into the sky. Hence why he said "boy those flaps really balloon this thing!"
@@AlextheHistorian Thanks for your reply, that's interesting. I know very little about aviation. Do you think Howard was skittish about flying it again and trying for a higher altitude?
@truckinforjesus no he wasn't, he always intended to fly it again some day. From 1947 to his death in 1976, he kept the Hercules in perfect flight-ready condition at a cost of $1 million per year. He did this in case the US military ever needed to use it, because they owned it. But with his worsening OCD and then his advancing age, the opportunity never came.
I have a video all about the Hercules, why it was made and how it was built:
ruclips.net/video/n3D8q3bHiRc/видео.html
I wonder how it would have flown with 8 Allison T56 turboprop engines at 5900 hp each?
World's first Ekranoplan? (A lot of people believe it never left ground effect and wouldn't have been able to attain any more altitude.)
Even then that's a amazing success as even if it couldn't leave the ground effect it made it essentially immune from submarines and small surface craft that couldn't intercept it in time.
"A lot of people" believe the world is flat, or that biden got 81 million votes.
Those people are wrong, doing the math for its net thrust, weight and wing loading proves it has more than enough power for stable flight
Bro the titanic just happened a couple decades earlier
Thirty-five years earlier (in 1912).
4K upscaled, but not deinterlaced? LOL
I did de-interlace it, but the result is what you see here. The software just didn't have enough information to work with.
That plane was way under powered for it's size and weight
So it's kinda big...
Yogi Ji with Sarkar
Burns spruce moose was far better!
My mom didn't see the Spruce Goose takeoff but she but she used to see it every day at a hanger sitting by itself practically on the outside where they threw the damn thing like an old broken toy she told me what a damn way she go there every day on her lunch break and look at this damn thing and to think it's sat there since 1947 practically in the open until a collector bought the damn thing at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard you talked about having money to burn vacation order on my mom was a computer programmer and analyst she had to program the computers this was before the internet you had to put the information in one by one
It wasn't in the open. Howard Hughes kept the Hercules in a climate controlled custom hangar, and kept the plane maintained in flight ready condition at a cost of $1 million per year. It was the most well-cared for airplane to never take to the skies more than once.