Leonardo DiCaprio Flying Huge Flying Ship "Spruce Goose" H-4 Hercules | The Aviator (2004 film)

The Way of The Future…

What a time we are living in. If we want to fly any plane we can use simulator!

What a waste, so much iron to be a museumpiece !

We all know if Tom Cruise made this film he would demand to use the real Spruce Goose and demand to fly it himself! 😁👍

what's with the hate for flying boats? too communist? ectranoplan took your mojo?

That is not how you start the Howard Hughes’ Flying Boat.
You have to start 1 of 2 Franklin Four Cylinders with generators first, then you start engine #4.
At the time of it’s flight, the throttle controls were grouped together in 4 groups.
The stairs were also added after Howard’s death, decades later.

It’s the Hercules. Howard Hughes wants the title to your video changed to reflect this.

2,000 tons? How about just over 100?

The Antonov grandpa

"The Hughes H-4 Hercules was a monumental undertaking. "I put the sweat of my life into this thing" Howard Hughes

Would you call that a headwind, professor?

for the interior/cockpit shots was it the real thing or a 1:1 model

Unfi

DEALER PLATES
187
D
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At 60 knots it's V1 or decision speed meaning that it's too fast to abort the takeoff. You can't abort the takeoff you have to keep going whatever happens
At 75 knots it's Rotate meaning it's adequate speed to lift the plane into the air.

H4 hercules very long wings... very long from antonov an 225 mriya

Image if they had a sufficient power plant to fly that bird.

Where was the first metal put ?

Absolutely GREAT distillation of the take off scene!!! Thank You!!!

Just in time for jet engines and turboprops....

if I were rich, I would build a stainless steel version with turboprops

Early days of Gavin Belson working for Howard Hughes

It doesn't fly that much

Five minutes of pure drama

Anyone else notice that #1 was the last one fired in the start sequence? Kinda bass ackwards.

Dang. Imagine 8 throttle sticks

I remember seeing this plane when I was kid. Amazing aircraft.

I always liked how he looked out for the professor.

So that's where Gavin belson picked up his initial charm.

I remember doing my first solo flight in a Cessna 150. My flight instructor cleared me to do my solo probably too early. As soon as the plane left the ground and was airborne, I felt euphoria. It was as great as sex. Then I circled the airport twice. When it came time to make approach to land, I wanted to crap my britches. I was sure without my flight instructor in there with me, I wouldn't do it right. Fortunately, I did. But I quit my flying lessons after that. I had enough fun by then. Of course, had I been a much younger person at the time, I likely would have not been so nervous.

Well, the thing did lift off. No doubt about that that. But had it had a bunch of soldiers riding in it with all their combat gear, that might have been a different story.

He should have mounted 4 additional engines on the tail elevator . That will increase power.

Man. Great music.

What thrilling sequence! Great film!

The H-4 didn't just 'take off' at 75 MPH. Hughes had to call out an order for "Flaps, 15 degrees", which all the crew knew would have been the order for lifting clear of the water and flying. Without the proper flaps setting, it could have taxied all the way across the Pacific at that speed without ever lifting off. It wasn't any accident that it flew.

To actually been there and watch it take off must have been nothing but spectacular. I could imagine how exciting I'd be if I was there to witness the maiden flight. Was the H-4 Hercules a seabase only plane or did it actually have wheels too?

The Greatest Aircraft ever, made by the Greatest Man ever

Strap some turboprops on it now and she'll fly high.

Airplanes rule!

I don’t care if it had ground effect, I say that the H-4 Hercules flew. The Wright Flyer has ground effect as well, yet nobody denies that thing ever flew (and it flew lower than the Hercules).

Howard Hughes was nuts!!

Some of my aviation friends have said, that in some aviation circles, the word is that the reason that it never flew higher (the movie shows it way too high) and that it never flew again, is because it actually can't really fly. The reason that it "flew" is because of a phenomenon known as "ground effect" where the air under the plane forced it to lift off once it hit the right speed and had the right lift so it was actually flying on a cushion of air. He only flew it in a straight line, but he never really flew it high or did any banking turns. It only reached 70 feet but the wing span is 320 feet, so it only reached less than 1/4 of the whole wing span.

Such an awesome feat of American engineering, I think it was quite a symbol for the time period: Things were becoming bigger, faster, more advanced and efficient.

This airplane still exists, it's kept at the Evergreen aviation museum. IMHO they ought to take her out and fly her about now and then, but I guess they're skeered of something going wrong and losing their prized exhibit.

Sad to think this was made 14 years ago and was one of the last live-action roles for Sir Ian Holm ('Prof Fitz'). He did "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Garden State" the same year. Although he appeared in a handful of small roles over the next couple of years, aside some narration work in subsequent years, he did not appear on screen again until reprising the role of 'Bilbo Baggins' in Sir Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit". "The Battle of the Five Armies" in 2014 was his last screen credit and, at the age of 86, seems to have retired. :(

It's too sad they just build only one.