Hughes H-4 Hercules (oz16354)
About this Plan
Hughes H-4 Hercules (Spruce Goose). Free flight scale model for rubber power. Wingspan 16 in.
Direct submission to Outerzone.
Quote: "HUGHES H-4 HERCULES/SPRUCE GOOSE. 16” RUBBER POWERED FF.
Gage, has done it to me again. The more I thought about a 16” span Spruce Goose I just had to give it a try. So Gage, here’s a quick drawn plan for a small H-4.
I used a quick build cracked rib wing with a turbulator spar between the main spar and the leading edge. After the main wing is built before the turbulator spars is added you might want to consider two turbulator spars to round out the airfoil. I only show one but two might be better. I also show some 1/16” sheet to anchor the nacelles to the wing. I’d use some scrap balsa to fill in this area. I thought of 1/32” sheet tubes to represent the nacelles with laminated balsa circles cross grain for the cowlings. This isn’t noted on the plan. I also thought of possible paper tubes instead of the 1/32” tubes.
Outside floats I’d use foam carved to shape. Sealed and sanded for silver paint.
Fuselage formers are 1/16” sheet.
I decided to go with a sheet horizontal stab. Let the grain run tip to tip here. The vertical stab I chose to go with a laminated outline for lightness (1/32”x1/16”). This wouldn’t work with a neo-dime plan for the basic dime plan.
The canopy area I would plunge/shrink tube mold from a carved plug. This would sit on top of the curved fuselage surface making the raised cockpit area.
I hope Gage can make this work.
Thanks again to Steve and Mary for this great site!!!
Regards,
Tom Akery/Sky9pilot"
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User comments
Dear Steve, Dear Tom,I just looked over your recently published plan of the hughes H-4 Hercules. The main spar is noted as tapered from 1/16" x 3/4" to 1/16" square. But it might be 1/16 x 3/16 at the rootrip to match the thickness of the airfoil at these point. Thank you for Your beautiful site, and the contributions of so many modellers like Tom. It´s allways a plearsure to look at. Best regards. Christoph, Bielefeld, Germany
Christoph - 27/10/2025
Christoph,
I didn't measure the airfoil but recognize that the H-4 has a very thick wing and I just wanted to make sure I had a thick root. It's a semi-scale but in my model plan drawing I'll have to be more careful to make sure the airfoil matches the spar with 1/16"SQ rib over and under the spar. Thanks for pointing this out. The H-4 will have a larger root rib size or some wise modeler will shrink the root size of the spar . Thanks again for pointing this out.
Regards,
Tom
Tom Akery - 27/10/2025
Thank you yet again, Tom. I do have an interesting request, I feel like autogyros are a very untouched aspect of free flight, and I would be happily interested in building a scale autogyro rather than any conventional model. I do have a few possible requests:
-Focke Wulf Fw61 (not an autogyro, but can be turned into one- look at oz3396 as an example, although that example is semi-scale, i believe it could become a wonderful model with plenty of stability)
-cierva c.30
Gage Van Vranken - 28/10/2025
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- Hughes H-4 Hercules (oz16354)
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