It was designed at a time when very large logistics aircraft were in their infancy, and it used the best propulsion available at the time, but there were still plenty of unknowns. At best it could have been considered an R&D bird.
Without payload, it might possibly have reached 29K before draining the fuel tanks!
The wood construction was of course to overcome a foreseen strategic aluminum shortage, which never fully materialized.
And 224 cylinders, 448 spark plugs????
BTW - model designation was I believe HK-4, for Hughes-Kaiser. I don't recall what shipbuilder Kaiser's involvement was. The H-1 was the famous (or notorious, because competitors refused to race against this ship) prewar racer.
Last edited by barit1; 25th Sep 2006 at 13:18.