| Abstrakt: |
With a wingspan of 320 feet—longer than a football field—the Spruce Goose has the distinction of being the largest aircraft ever built. Planned and designed during World War II, when materials such as aluminum were in short supply and were reserved for the most urgent military projects, the Spruce Goose earned its name from its nearly all-wood construction. Only the flaps, or control surfaces, were made from fabric; the remainder of the plane was fashioned from layers of plywood especially constructed at the Hughes Aircraft Company plant in Culver City, California. Despite its nickname, the “Spruce Goose,” only about 5 to 10 percent of the craft is constructed of spruce; the remainder is birch plywood. The name stuck, however, because, in the words of one worker, “nobody could think of a word that rhymed with birch.” |
