Hughes Aircraft Company

The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded in 1932 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other products, the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by the Galileo spacecraft, and the AIM-4 Falcon guided missile.

It was acquired by General Motors from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1985. Hughes Aircraft was put under the umbrella of Hughes Electronics, now known as DirecTV, until GM sold its assets to Raytheon in 1997.

History

During World War II the company designed and built several prototype aircraft at Hughes Airport. These included the famous Hughes H-4 Hercules, better known by the public's nickname for it, the "Spruce Goose", the H-1 racer, D-2 and the XF-11. However the plant's hangars at Hughes Airport, location of present day Playa Vista in the Westside of Los Angeles, California, were primarily used as a branch plant for the construction of other companies' designs. At the start of the war Hughes Aircraft had only four full-time employees—by the end the number was 80,000.

Howard Hughes

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business tycoon, entrepreneur, investor, aviator, aerospace engineer, inventor, filmmaker and philanthropist. During his lifetime, he was known as the wealthiest self-made man in the world, despite the fact that he had inherited 75% of the family business upon the death of his father. As a maverick film tycoon, Hughes gained prominence in Hollywood from the late 1920s, making big-budget and often controversial films like The Racket (1928), Hell's Angels (1930), Scarface (1932), and The Outlaw (1943).

Hughes formed the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932, hiring numerous engineers and designers. He spent the rest of the 1930s setting multiple world air speed records and building the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 Hercules (now better known as the "Spruce Goose"). He also acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines (TWA, subsequently acquired by and merged with American Airlines) and acquired Air West, renaming it Hughes Airwest. Hughes Airwest was eventually acquired by and merged into Republic Airlines.

Hughes H-4 Hercules

The Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the "Spruce Goose"; registration NX37602) is a prototype heavy strategic airlift military transport aircraft designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. Intended as a transatlantic flight transport for use during World War II, it was not completed in time to be used in the war. The aircraft made only one brief flight on November 2, 1947, and the project never advanced beyond the single example produced. Built from wood because of wartime restrictions on the use of aluminium and concerns about weight, it was nicknamed by critics the "Spruce Goose", although it was made almost entirely of birch. The Hercules is the largest flying boat ever built and has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in history. It is on display, and remains in good condition at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, United States.

Design and development

In 1942, the U.S. War Department needed to transport war materiel and personnel to Britain. Allied shipping in the Atlantic Ocean was suffering heavy losses to German U-boats, so a requirement was issued for an aircraft that could cross the Atlantic with a large payload. Wartime priorities meant the aircraft could not be made of strategic materials (e.g., aluminum).

Hughes H-1 Racer

The Hughes H-1 is a racing aircraft built by Hughes Aircraft in 1935. It set a world airspeed record and a transcontinental speed record across the United States. The H-1 Racer was the last aircraft built by a private individual to set the world speed record; most aircraft to hold the honor since have been military designs.

Design and development

During his work on his movie Hell's Angels, Howard Hughes employed Glenn Odekirk to maintain the fleet of over 100 aircraft used in the production. The two men shared a common interest in aviation and hatched a plan to build a record-beating aircraft. The aircraft was given many names, but is commonly known as the H-1. It was the first aircraft model produced by the Hughes Aircraft company.

Design studies began in 1934 with an exacting, large scale model (over two feet in length) that was tested in the California Institute of Technology wind tunnel, revealing a speed potential of 365 mph.

Technical details

Streamlining was a paramount design criterion resulting in "one of the cleanest and most elegant aircraft designs ever built." Many groundbreaking technologies were developed during the construction process, including individually machined flush rivets that left the aluminium skin of the aircraft completely smooth. The H-1 also had retractable landing gear to further increase the speed of the aircraft, including a fully retractable hydraulically actuated tail skid. It was fitted with a Pratt & Whitney R-1535 twin-row 14-cylinder radial engine of 1,535 in³ (25.2 L), which although originally rated at 700 hp (522 kW), was tuned to put out over 1,000 horsepower (750 kW).

United States

Coordinates: 40°N 100°W / 40°N 100°W / 40; -100

The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major territories and various possessions. The 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. At 3.8 million square miles (9.842 million km²) and with over 320 million people, the country is the world's third or fourth-largest by total area and the third most populous. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The geography and climate of the United States are also extremely diverse, and the country is home to a wide variety of wildlife.