H-4 The Spruce Goose

June 28 2012

On Wednesday morning we packed up and drove next door to the Evergreen Aviation Museum. They have a large parking lot with plenty of room, there were 2 or 3 other RV’s already parked by the time we got there.

With great anticipation we entered, starting in the space building and saving the large building containing Howard Hughes’s H-4 for last. The space building was interesting and informative and we spent far longer than I thought we would there. I figured we’d spend a couple hours at the museum and be back on the road, but there is so much to see we stayed until after 4 pm.

The Evergreen has a wonderful collection of finely restored aircraft representing all of the evolutionary stages of flight. I’m not even going to try to list them all, there are too many, here is a link to their website, http://www.evergreenmuseum.org

Of course the SPRUCE GOOSE is the main attraction and you can’t miss it as this huge flying boat dominates the main building. The most interesting thing I learned was about the construction method. Obviously it is made entirely of wood, but not in the traditional way you would make a wooden boat or airplane. If you’ve ever seen one of those contemporary Swedish chairs from the 60’s made of many thin layers of wood bonded together, you can get an idea of the H-4 structure. Every surface of the aircraft from the frames, to doors, to outer skin was all made of and interconnected using the bonded layering process. It appears to me that it is an incredibly strong design. It is made mostly of birch, not spruce; the spruce goose moniker came from the press, and was a name despised by Howard Hughes.

I left with a new respect for the H-4 and the man who built it. It’s a shame things happened the way they did and the technology was hidden away for so many years. The composite construction method that Hughes used on the H-4 is clearly the forerunner to today’s composite aircraft.

I’m not going to post a lot of pictures of the H-4, it’s too big to get in one shot for one thing, but it’s more than that. Words or pictures, especially my scribbling can’t describe it, you have to experience it. You need to come to McMinnville Oregon and see it with your own eyes, touch it and walk inside of it. At the least, you’ll be amazed; if you love airplanes it will be spiritual.

Departing McMinnville we traveled west again to the coast and a two night stop at another Thousand Trails Park, this one is called Pacific City. It is far nicer than the previous TT Park we stayed at, plus it is a short walk to the ocean. We took the girls to the beach and let them run without their leashes.