Heading down to McMinnville in Oregon, I was looking forward to seeing the changes if any at the museum. I was also hoping to get into the Spruce Goose and get the inside info on this historic aircraft.
I visited the museum in 2011 and since then, it had undergone a few dramatic changes on the ownership side. The previous owners, Evergreen International Aviation, had gone through an upheaval and had gone into liquidation. The museum had been bought by Oregon winery, the Stoller Group.
I noticed that the surrounding land is covered in vineyards which makes sense for the winery to use that space.
The museum itself is a freestanding entity and has to make its way by way of visitor numbers. The museum consists of four separate buildings. The main gallery where the Spruce Goose is housed, the Space gallery, the Imax Theatre and the Water World which has a Boeing 747 mounted on the roof where one can take a waterslide from top to bottom - I have not been into that building so cannot describe it but I imagine it could be a lot of fun.
The aircraft and space artefacts in the museum are some of the best in the world - the centre-piece of the main museum is of course the Spruce Goose. The aircraft takes up much of the area and dominates the gallery. The aircraft all around the Spruce Goose are either replicas or genuine aircraft. The purpose of any aviation museum is to bring the past to our future kids. And this museum surely does that with some really interesting aircraft and space artefacts. From a Curtiss Fledgling to a F-86 Sabre jet, a Replica Focke Wulf FW-190 and Messerschmidtt Me262 to a Douglas A-26 Invader. Many other priceless aircraft are dotted all around the floor of the gallery and several outside.
In the Space Museum gallery (a separate building) are some of the most iconic aircraft and rockets from a Titan II (a genuine one) which stands two floors below ground level and reaches the roof of the building to an SR-71 Blackbird (Ser. No. 61-7971) and several replica space craft including a Mercury Space Capsule. Also on the floor is a replica moon buggy.
However, for me, the most important aircraft in the collection is without a doubt the Spruce Goose. The Hughes H-4 Hercules was designed and built in the early '40's and was the brainchild of Henry Kaiser who was a leading Liberty Ship builder. He teamed up with aircraft designer Howard Hughes and work started in 1942 on the aircraft which was to be the biggest transporter of it's time. The aircraft was built mainly of birch (Hughes hated the name Spruce Goose). Delays in the design changes caused Kaiser to withdraw from the project and Hughes went ahead on his own. The designation changed to the Hughes H-4 at that stage. The process employed was a process called Duramold using plywood and resin as aluminium was at a premium during the war. The build was completed by 1947 and of course missed the war by two years. Undaunted, Hughes did taxi trails and during one of those trails, Hughes decided it was time to fly the aircraft. The H-4 picked up speed and Hughes lifted off and was airborne for 26 seconds at a height of 70 ft - never to fly again.
Fast forward to 1992.
There was a bidding process for the honour of displaying the Spruce Goose and that bid was won by Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon. What follows is an amazing achievement on its own. The aircraft was moved by barge and road from Long Beach to its new home in Oregon. First up the West Coast on a barge, then into the Columbia River to Portland and then along the Willamette River to within a few kilometres of the museum. It was then transported by road to the final destination where it proudly stands today.
The journey was not without some challenges. The height of the Willamette River had to be carefully monitored till the correct level was reached so that the huge aircraft (which was in several pieces) could safely pass beneath the bridges on the way. It also had to pass through the Willamette lock, which by-passed the Willamette Falls (see photo). I had the pleasure of viewing the Willamette River up close as my Portland family lives almost on the river. My son took us to view the Falls and unfortunately, we could not get to the lock itself but could see that it was fairly narrow on the other side of the river.
The Spruce Goose is housed in a specially built building with a glass frontage giving plenty of light in the gallery. As mentioned, the Spruce Goose dwarfs every other aircraft in the gallery. One is able to gain entry to the aircraft by paying an extra fee and one is then taken on a guided tour of the aircraft by a volunteer who has an in-depth knowledge of the aircraft. It is well worth the extra fee. The technology used on the Spruce Goose was amazing for it's time. It even had a coffee dispenser installed. What caught my eye was the extra seating in the cockpit area. Apart from the pilots and engineer, there are twelve extra seats for passengers. The upper area is very spacious and the engineers could even access inside of the wings while in flight. It would have been very loud though with the four Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major 28-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines on each wing thundering away.
Our guide, Gary Warner was very informative and did a great job of explaining the workings of the Spruce Goose. Again, a self-guided tour would not gleam all the info that Gary gave us. Another reason to pay the extra fee to do the tour. A word of caution though - if you are not able to climb stairs or in a wheelchair, you would not be able to take the tour as there is a spiral staircase that one has to negotiate to get to the flight deck.
The museum is really worth a visit if you find yourself in Oregon. The fee to get in is currently $28 for the museum tour, $22 for seniors and $24 for the Spruce Goose tour. If you are an aviation enthusiast, it is money well spent.
