I wish I’d been in LA in 1946 to witness this one-in-a-lifetime event. By June of that year, Howard Hughes’s $20 million Spruce Goose was ready to be transported in pieces from Playa Vista down to Long Beach, where it was reassembled for its sole test flight in the following year. The move took two full days; the aircraft was so big that 2100 power and telephone lines had to be raised or lowered to clear the way.