Hands-On: The Bremont H-4 Hercules Limited Edition

By James Stacey

Aviation, especially that motivated by wartime efforts, has always been an environment where big ideas were worth something – even if those ideas became problematic when introduced to the open skies. Following in their well-established format of creating limited edition pieces that both pay homage to – and incorporate a piece of – a famous element of military or aviation history, Bremont’s latest edition looks back at the amazing story of a giant plane – the H-4 Hercules.

From the more recent Supersonic to the Codebreaker and all the way back to the EP120, Bremont has been designing these flagship models as the brand’s way of highlighting special stories and creating a watch that integrates a physical piece of an important boat, machine, or plane. With that in mind, their new H-4 Hercules commemorates the famous 1940s Hughes-era aircraft and even incorporates some of its famed wood construction into the design of the watch.

For those unaware of the H-4 Hercules, a quick recap is likely in order. Designed with the goal of carrying both troops and munitions to the battlefield in Europe, the legendary Hughes Aircraft H-4 Hercules would become a controversial project that showed both the promise of large-scale aviation and the extreme difficulty of designing a cutting edge airframe. Nicknamed the “Spruce Goose” after its predominantly wood-based construction (due to aluminum restrictions during wartime), it was the largest plane ever built. Sadly, by the time the first (and only) H-4 was constructed, the requirements of the original Department of Defense brief were no longer relevant. The U-Boat threat was no longer as dire an issue, and the H-4’s extreme cost could not be rationalized. It was an amazing design that simply wasn’t needed by the time Hughes had produced a flight-ready example.

While an innovative and entirely remarkable aircraft that was the product of a genius’s grand design, the story of the Hercules is complex and Hughes did not work in a manner that complemented the increased pace of wartime manufacturing. Certainly not too little (it is 218.8 ft long and was designed to carry 750 troops or two 30-ton tanks) the H-4 was definitely too late and only a single example was ever produced.

Today, that H-4 Hercules, aka the Spruce Goose, resides as a display at the Evergreen Aviation …read more