The failed mission was intended to produce an aircraft that could move Allied Army equipment to Europe. All it achieved was a massacre of trees five stories high and almost 92 meters wide that flew in 1947 over the water for a minute at 135 miles per hour. The device went from that feat to an immense hangar from which it never left for almost thirty years, until it finally came to rest at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon.
Fly…? It flew the gigantic airplane. What if the goal had been simply to build the largest airplane in the world, or a wooden aircraft, to fly for 60 seconds? We would be remembering the events as a resounding and strident success. The purpose is what defined the event as failure: it did not achieve what was undertaken. From what was agreed between the company and the government, only one very expensive anecdote remained in the aviation history books.
The most interesting thing about this event is the analogy with so many lives, the moral that emerges from it. In the world there have always been a few Howad Hughes who imposed their ambitious and eminent, useful and concrete goals on the many ‘Spruce Gooses’ employed in their jobs, but who only managed to fly for a minute to spend the rest of their lives forgotten in a small room office and eventually become a retiree in a little-visited nursing home. What if the mission of that crowd was another? And what if the vital objective was that: to fly a few meters for a short time at a certain speed? God knows and time will tell. So, what lesson does this picturesque Hughes adventure leave?:
- Failure is one more moment of the journey. No matter the size of the frustration or the might of the fall, always keep going until the bell rings at the end of the round.
- Although money is not scarce, if the mission fails, things don’t make sense. You have to ask yourself a thousand and one times the reason for things being. Stories are good for that. What did those who preceded me do or not achieve? Why and for what do I do what I do? Where am I going? What do I hope to find or achieve there? Going back to the roots is often inexcusable.
- If a personal ambition is achieved, but it does not improve one’s own life and that of others, what is it that has been obtained?
- The consequences of loss, disappointment, or deception can be almost fatal. You have to be awake and watch, have spare oil and persevere in the work of normality.
- We were made to fly, all of us, without exception. Physically or spiritually our being is called to go beyond the surface. It is necessary to spread the wings, although it seems nonsense, or a waste of time, or that we do not achieve our purpose. You have to go out into the ring and jump into the air. Everyone will get it… we will get it!
Inspired by Christian D’Andrea’s Schadenfreude Fridays: The Spruce Goose — An Engineering Marvel of Failure (2012)
