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development by Hughes
...flight-time record to 7 hours 28 minutes. Flying a Lockheed 14, he circled the Earth in a record 91 hours 14 minutes in July 1938. From 1942 he worked on the design of an eight-engine wooden flying boat intended to carry 750 passengers. In 1947 he piloted the Spruce Goose, as the airplane was known, on its only flight—1 mile (1.6 km).
displayed in Long Beach
...as a maritime museum, meeting centre, and hotel; it adjoins the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, one of the largest halls in the region. From 1983 to 1992 the legendary Spruce Goose airplane, built by Howard Hughes, was on display in the city; the plane subsequently was moved to Portland, Oregon, and the cavernous dome that housed it was converted into a movie...
use of composite materials
...began to appear in the late 1930s and ’40s; normally these were plastic-impregnated wood materials, the most famous (and largest) example of which is the Duramold construction of the eight-engine Hughes flying boat. A few production aircraft also used the Duramold construction materials and methods.