In 1942, the United States, at war, had a problem.

There wasn't enough metal and we needed more planes.

Howard Hughes came up with the solution.

He built the biggest airplane in the history of the world,

and he built it out of birch wood.

Hey, this is Emily in the Bronx,

and you're listening to a special archived episode of Akimbo.

Yes, the spruce goose, the biggest airplane in the history of the world,

was made out of birch.

And it only flew once.

And the reason is pretty simple.

Unless you have no choice in the matter,

it's a bad idea to make an airplane out of wood.

Metal has better merit.

Metal is better.

Engineers understand the idea of merit

when it comes to natural materials

and other technological contributors to what they are building.

It gets really interesting and really problematic

when we start dealing with people instead of raw materials.

How, for example, to decide who should go to Harvard

or who should play basketball at Stanford or Illinois?

...