The Spruce Goose

[TheLongRun]

The Spruce Goose

On November 2, 1947 Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. took the Hughes H-4 Hercules for its first and only flight.

In honor of Hughes death (April 5, 1976) I challenge everyone to replicate his great aircraft.

This challenge will have 2 categories: best replica and biggest replica. Modded and stock will also be divided.

Best replica will be judged on how closely it follows the shape, dimensions, and weight of the original one.

Wingspan: 98 m

Length: 67 m

Weight: 136,100 kg

The biggest replica challenge will be judged on overall size (bigger is better) and how well it follows the originals shape.

Rules of both challenges:

All parts are allowed

Part clipping is allowed

No infinite fuel

Needs to land mostly intact (ex. less than half a wing missing)

The original flight specs (must exceed all of these):

altitude: 21 m

airspeed: 217 km/h

distance: 1.6 km

Note:

This plane is not made to land on land it is a water plane!

So only put enough wheels on it to get it to the water!

If you have questions please ask.

And last of all I'll put my attempt up soon.

Now get out there and make Hughes proud!

Here is a badge for everyone who completes this:

Edit:

I finally got mine flying check page 2

Edited April 10, 2015 by TheLongRun

[Columbia]

I'll give this a try when I'm back home.. I love the concept!

Just a question though: Are stock bearings/propellers required, or can it be powered by jet engines?

Thanks in advance!

[Fengist]

Do we have to replicate Howard's mason jars full of urine too????

[TheLongRun]

yeah jets are fine, its hard enough to get stock props working with ought attaching them to this thing and having it fly.

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sure, and try to get his mono plane working as well! Remember I want it smooth.

Edited April 7, 2015 by TheLongRun

[Kras]

Are there extra points for taking back off from the water?

[Columbia]

And I'd also suggest making a sort of "badge", for users to display in their signatures to symbolize accomplishing the challenge.

[boostedM]

Oo good. This gives me an excuse to fine tune mine. I stopped at the proof of concept stage to work on my E-2 Hawkeye. Should have a submission some time this evening or tomorrow

[boostedM]

Okay, here's mine. Don't know how to get exact dimensions other than weight, but I got approximate wingspan and length by stacking other parts beside each other to measure. It's almost exactly half-scale in all dimensions, including weight.

Mods: B9 & KAX

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[hoioh]

In KSP 0.90.0 there's a little "i" button in the right hand lower corner of the VAB/SPH where you can click on and it will show you length, width, height and weight as well as number of parts used.

Nice looking plane by the way.

[boostedM]

In KSP 0.90.0 there's a little "i" button in the right hand lower corner of the VAB/SPH where you can click on and it will show you length, width, height and weight as well as number of parts used.

Nice looking plane by the way.

I was using .25 for this. Most of my mods and replica builds are on .25 and I haven't taken the time to change them all over to .90

[hoioh]

It's not a lot of trouble, outside of all the mods that is. The ships pick up in 0.90.0 without much troubles once you get all your mods back in place, you just have to open them in the SPH/VAB before you can launch them in order to update the size info. Other than that, you won't even notice.

[TheLongRun]

points for retake off, sure that seems fine

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badge is a great idea I'll get to that right after I'm done making my own plane lol I've been a lot more preoccupied than I thought I would be.

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looks great boostedmM

[TheLongRun]

Okey sorry it took so long but here is my stock Spruce Goose its scaled to 77% size because my computer couldn't run when I did it at 100% and I had to remove some of the under side to because of the absurd amount of intakes killing my PC but I got two flights out of it and crashed on the second landing so I say its a pass on performance but not scale. Hope You all have fun making your own.