One of the fun airplanes that the MSFS team added to the sim in the 40th Anniversary update was the Hughes H-4 Hercules. It was long past time to try out this airplane… and so I did.

A short hop from New York to Boston

You may be asking why pick New York when the H-4’s only flight took place in the waters off the coast of Los Angeles. Well… MSFS doesn’t let you start a float plane just anywhere and there are no designated water start areas near Los Angeles in the sim by default. So I went looking for a city that did and it turns out that New York and Boston both do. So off I went!

Once started up, the first challenge was to maneuver the massive H-4. The rudder does nothing at slow speeds so it’s all about engine control and manually controlling the outer most engines helped me line the nose up with my takeoff line.

I got a little panicked and wasn’t sure if I was going to have full control of the airplane so I made the decision to just go for it. Speed built slowly as the H-4 bobbed in the light waves. Then suddenly the water rushing noises stopped and the H-4 was airborne. Trees rose up ahead of me but the giant aircraft floated upwards and away from the danger.

The real airplane flew for just 26 seconds during a “taxi test” conducted by Hughes himself. At this point, my simulated H-4 was now doing what the real one would never get a chance to do and had taken flight for over a minute. Then we were on our way towards Boston.

Moments like those in the lead-up to flying the H-4 in MSFS took me back to when I watched The Aviator where they recreated the famous moments where it took flight.

A look around the H-4

This 40th Anniversary aircraft addition could not be called a “study level” airplane. The throttle, mixture and radiator systems are simplistic and some of the gauges like oil temperature read zero. Many of the switches, knobs and dials aren’t interactive either. But you want to know what? In instances like this, I really don’t mind one bit.

This is a lovingly crafted airplane and one of the examples of how Microsoft Flight Simulator has worked to create these interactive, digital museum pieces and brought them to our PC’s. This isn’t the same experience as a PMDG 737 or Blackbird’s Cessna 310R but put aside the fidelity and focus on the experience and here I am virtually piloting this behemoth of a float plane across the landscape between New York and Boston and for a moment its just pure bliss.

There are some cool features with this airplane. The whole flight deck itself is incredibly cool to look at. The lights work, the passenger area has the appropriate seating, the engineering stations are all present and highly detailed, and the view from the pilot seat is something else. The coffee machine also sports the name of the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum located in McMinnville, Oregon where the H-4 now resides. Cool detail!

There’s also a notepad with “handwritten” notes sitting to the left of the pilot that functions as a kind of EFB. It has some basic panel states (auto start-up, auto-shut down, etc.) and it lets you choose from a few options. If you want the airplane to have only the classic avionics you can… or you can add in a GNS430 GPS as well as a functional autopilot system. I made use of both to get the H-4 over to Boston. I couldn’t figure out how to adjust the heading mode but NAV and VS modes worked just fine.

Setting it down in Boston

It was a leisurely cruise at just 130 miles per hour but eventually we made it to Boston flying overhead Boston-Logan before doing a very wide arc and coming in for a landing on the water next to runway 14-32.

With the throttle lowered, the H-4 bleeds off speed quickly. The huge shadow of the airplane appeared on the ground next to me as I deployed the flaps and settled into a very gentle flare as the mammoth airplane touched down into the water.

That was a fun and memorable flight!

The H-4 won’t challenge you like flying a more deeply simulated GA airplane or an airliner but it will leave fun impression on everyone who decides to just take in those special moments in flight.