Largest wooden airplane ever constructed was famously nicknamed the Spruce Goose by a mocking press, despite the incredibly obvious fact that it was actually made entirely out of birch.

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Largest wooden airplane ever constructed was famously nicknamed the Spruce Goose by a mocking press, despite the incredibly obvious fact that it was actually made entirely out of birch. Eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes built the colossal H-4 Hercules during World War Two to transport troops across the Atlantic without using precious wartime metal reserves. By the time this monstrous flying boat was finally completed, the war had already been over for two years, rendering the entire outrageously expensive project completely pointless. Hughes was so deeply offended by the public ridicule and the inaccurate avian nickname that he personally flew the gigantic aircraft for exactly one minute just to prove his critics wrong. It lifted a mere seventy feet off the water, traveled a single mile, and then was immediately locked away in a massive climate-controlled hangar where Hughes paid a full crew to guard it for three decades. It is the ultimate historical example of a fragile male ego stubbornly refusing to admit a bad investment, perfectly preserved in laminated wood