Man, Moment, Machine: Howard Hughes And The Spruce Goose

He was a successful film producer and consummate Hollywood playboy, but the larger-than-life Howard Hughes remains best known for his daredevil exploits in the field of aviation. In 1947, the man who found fame in the film industry, while simultaneously building aircraft for the U.S. government, collaborated with industrialist Henry J. Kaiser to build, and then successfully pilot, a massive flying machine called the H-4 Hercules. Otherwise known by its nickname the "Spruce Goose," the H-4 Hercules still holds the record for having the largest wingspan of any aircraft in history. Hughes's dubious "flying boat," originally commissioned by the American government during the height of WWII, was designed to transport as many as 750 U.S. soldiers or two M4 Sherman tanks across the Atlantic Ocean. In this riveting program from Man, Moment, Machine, experience the first - and only - flight of the Spruce Goose, when Howard Hughes finally proved to the world that he could make his 400,000-pound bird fly.

Some Scenes Presented in Black & White.