The Hughes H-4 Hercules, the flying boat better known as the Spruce Goose, weighed 193 tonnes and had a wingspan of 97.51 m (319 ft 11 in). Guinness World Records lists it as the largest flying boat ever constructed, and records a single flight off Long Beach Harbor, California, on 2 November 1947.

Howard Hughes was the pilot. The aircraft never flew again.

Eight engines and 66.65 m of length

The Hercules had eight engines and measured 66.65 m (218 ft 8 in) in length. Its wing, at 319 ft 11 in, was longer than the aircraft itself by roughly 100 ft, and Guinness classes the whole machine as a flying boat.

Guinness gives the weight as 193 tonnes.

Seventy feet over 3,000 feet

On 2 November 1947 Hughes piloted the Hercules off Long Beach Harbor. The aircraft rose 21.3 m (70 ft) into the air during a test run of 914 m (3,000 ft), which is the only flight recorded for it.

Set against the aircraft’s own dimensions, the run covered a little over nine wingspans, and the height reached was less than a quarter of the distance from one wingtip to the other.

The record entry describes the event as a test run. For the flight itself it gives only the height, the distance, the pilot, the date and the place. There is no second flight, no route and no passenger list in the Guinness account.

The flight’s 79th anniversary falls on 2 November 2026.

Hughes, listed by Guinness as the pilot that day, was born in 1905 and died in 1976.

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