The Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airliner, has one of the tallest vertical stabilizers ever fitted to a commercial aircraft. The top of its tail stands around 79 feet above the ground, roughly the height of an eight-story building.
Despite its enormous size, however, the A380 does not hold the record for the tallest aircraft tail in aviation history.
The Boeing 747 reaches around 63 feet, while the U.S. Air Force’s C-5 Galaxy stands about 65 feet tall at the tail. The massive Antonov An-225, meanwhile, reached roughly 59 feet.
The record belongs to Howard Hughes’ H-4 Hercules, better known as the Spruce Goose. The wooden flying boat stood approximately 79 feet 4 inches at its tail, just a few inches taller than the A380. It flew only once, for around 26 seconds, in 1947.
Nearly eight decades later, the Spruce Goose remains the tallest aircraft ever built when measured by tail height.
