A side view of the HK-1, Hughes Flying Boat, the world's largest plane, which successfully completed its first flight. The eight 3,000 horsepower engines lifted the craft from the waters of Los Angeles Harbor with Hughes at the controls. The plane is 219 ft long.
Transcribed from stamp on back of photo: "June 16, 1946; Hughes Aircraft Photo." Crowds and policeman watching as a section of Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" or "Flying Boat" was being moved (with a police escort) from the Hughes Aircraft plant in Culver City, California to Terminal Island in the Los Angeles Harbor where the plane was assembled June 1946. The men are raising the power lines so the fuselage can pass under.
Transcribed from attached press release: "LITTLE BIT Only an inch and a quarter in diameter, this "microbit" enables engineers at the Hughes Tool Company, Houston, Texas, to estimate the performance of full-size bits for the oil drilling industry. The company operates the largest testing laboratory of its kind anywhere in the world and produces thousands of rock bits necessary to drill deeper and deeper as the world's shallow oil wells have become exhausted. Howard Hughes terms the Hughes Tool company the "keystone" of his industrial empire."
A section of Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" or "Flying Boat" being moved (with a police escort) from the Hughes Aircraft plant in Culver City, California to Terminal Island in the Los Angeles Harbor where the plane was assembled in June of 1946.
Howard Hughes with his flight engineer and Dave Evans, radio operator, preparing for the Flying Boat's taxi test the next day. The group is shown on the flight deck of the 24,000 horsepower craft. The Flying Boat was assembled on Terminal Island in the Los Angeles Harbor.