At the Evergreen Aviation @ Space Museum Mc Minnville, Oregon

To close out our trip to Oregon we included a stop in Minnville, Oregon, and visited the Evergreen Aviation air museum. The museum now houses the “Spruce Goose”, you may recall this iconic aircraft was once put on display adjacent to the Queen Mary under the white dome at Long Beach harbor.

The white dome now has been repurposed as a departure point for luxury cruise lines. Lin and I have not seen the “Spruce Goose” for several decades now but we have to say it is in remarkable condition.

Howard Hughes was given a military contract during WWII to design and construct a transport plane for troops and equipment. Because of the ongoing, war resources needed to construct this huge plane would put a strain on other areas of war production. A stipulation was put into the contract that the plane would have to be made out of wood which was plentiful. Howard Hughes was a experienced engineer and was the head of his aviation company. Hughes and his company took on the challenge of building the largest aircraft ever built.

Some years had passed before the plane was completed and ready for its first test flight, the flight was short but the aircraft which was flying boat design rose briefly out of the waters and was under controlled flight. The war ended the military turned its attention to development of jet aircraft. Howard Hughes put the “Spruce Goose” in storage having satisfied the stipulations of the contract.

The Evergreen Aviation museum does have other aircraft on display and also another building you can explore that houses the Space museum. I highly recomend a visit if your traveling through the area.

The “Spruce Goose” was not made out of Spruce but Birch trees.

Thanks for leting us share out travels

Mike-KB6USJ

Lin-GMRS

More Information about the museum can be found by clicking on the Link http://www.evergreenmuseum.org