What was the Spruce Goose?

Answer 1

The "Spruce Goose" is the Hughes H-4 Flying Boat, which is one of the largest planes ever made--in wingspan and height it is larger than the Lockheed C-5 and the C-5 is only four feet longer. They designed the plane to use to transport troops to Europe during World War II. During the war, the Nazis' submarine fleet was sinking a lot of troopships. They needed a troopship that couldn't be sunk by a submarine, and the only way to do it was to build one that flies. It was made of wood (actually birch, though spruce was common in aircraft construction) because of the shortage of metal. They flew it once and it would have been really great as far as saving lives during the war, except that they finished it two years after the war ended. Now it's in a museum in Oregon.