Ever since it launched in the summer of 2020, Microsoft Flight Simulator has been making magic happen. Back in those strange, scary months of lockdown it allowed us to take to perfectly modelled recreations of the then eerily quiet skies, traversing a globe that had been locked off for so many of us, allowing us to visit old haunts or go chasing down storms on the other side of the world. Now, as the series approaches its 40th anniversary – and as a new and expansive add-on is prepared to launch in celebration – it’s about to pull off what might be one of its more impressive tricks yet.
On November 2 1947 the Hughes H-4 Hercules took its one and only flight. Setting off from just beyond the coastline of Long Beach, the Hughes H-4 – or Spruce Goose as it came to be known in deference to the wood that made up its duramold composite – was airborne for some 26 seconds, never getting above 100ft for a flight that saw it cover just over a mile.
And yet what an achievement, and what a sight it must have been. When Spruce Goose made flight it boasted the largest wingspan of any plane on the planet, a record made all the more impressive in that it would hold onto the record until 2019 when the Scaled Composites Stratolaunch took to the skies.
Across the 75 years since Spruce Goose’s sole flight it’s been carefully preserved; first on Long Beach, hermetically sealed in keeping with designer and the H4 Hercules’ sole pilot Howard Hughes’ compulsive bent, before it was placed on public display and later moved at great expense to the Evergreen Museum, just south of Portland, Oregon.
Which is where it remains today, and where this week there’s been a burst of activity as the museum’s halls are filled with representatives from Microsoft. They’re here as guests of the Evergreen Museum, hosting a celebration for the 40th anniversary of Microsoft Flight Simulator, and where the series’ current steward Jorg Neumann is preparing the sim’s latest feat of magic; 75 years on from its sole, short trip, Spruce Goose is about to be airborne again.