While several examples of billionaire oilman Howard's Hughes aero-nautical genius continue to exist today, none probably intrigues us more than the HK-1 Hercules – known more famously as "The Spruce Goose."
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Saved from the wrecker's ball (chainsaw?) by Evergreen Aviation based in McMinnville, Oregon, the Hercules is the keystone exhibit of Evergreen's aviation museum built specifically to house the Spruce Goose.
Evergreen obtained her in 1990 from the Aero Club of Southern California and moved her to Oregon in 1992. Over the next eight years, Evergreen and an army of volunteers lovingly restored the Spruce Goose before opening her to the public in 2001.
McMinnville is about an hour's drive from Portland and while admission to the museum is nominal and includes lower deck, but limited access to the Spruce Goose, it'll take $50 for the VIP tour which includes access to the flight deck.
To the aerophile, if there is something upon which $50 is well spent, it's the VIP tour!
We know today that Hughes suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder – easily treated today, but not so in the 1940s and 1950s – but his genius as inventor and innovator is clear as crystal when touring the Hercules.
The flight deck's layout is clearly well ahead of its time; the instrumentation, controls, gauges and switches all laid out in a fashion that would not become common place for another 20 years.
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| The Spruce Goose's pilot station |
Visibility is phenomenal and to sit in the Hercules' left seat – the very seat upon which Hughes himself sat as the Spruce Goose's only-ever pilot – is sobering at best; especially to anyone a fan of Hughes.
The flight deck is easily 14 feet wide and about 20 feet or so long leading aft to the wing's center section forward bulkhead. The center section itself, accessible through a hatch, is 11 feet 6 inches tall with additional hatches leading to the wing sections between the forward and aft spars.
Forward of that bulkhead and leading from the flight deck cabin are catwalks through which plumbing, electrical lines and other rigging are run provides access to spaces immediately behind the massive Pratt & Whitney R4360 engines which could be worked on in flight.
A flight engineer's panel along with engineering panels to which were run cables from sensors placed throughout the airframe feeding data to paper graphs; the computers of the day which detailed what was going on with the Spruce Goose under power.
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| VIP tours include the flight deck |
A telegrapher's station is also part of the flight deck compliment as part of the ground communication gear and, most surprising, two, four-cylinder Franklin aircraft engines are mounted in the aft flight deck section as auxiliary power units providing the Hercules with electricity prior to main engines start.
It was in November 1947, after much controversy, that Hughes sailed his creation out onto the waters near what is today Long Beach Harbor with a total 32 persons on board including crew, observers, government officials and newsmen.
Hughes didn't have government permission to actually take the airplane off, but during the taxi test, he increased speed until the Hercules came up on her step and then "accidently" took off, supposedly on its own. No one who knew Hughes ever believed it was an accident the Spruce Goose actually flew and it was Hughes at the controls when she did!
And, among those guests who were on board; well, supposedly Norma Jean Baker, like the Hercules by another name and more famously known as Marilyn Monroe, was one of those occupying the seats.
By the way, the Hercules' "Spruce Goose" nickname was one levied on her by the press; she's built out of Birch…ain't a stick of Spruce in her anywhere!
Whereas Hughes' creation – the largest aircraft and largest flying boat ever built, even today – had become something of a derelict and seemed doomed to destruction, today she greats visitors to her new home where she'll live on in pristine condition for generations to come.
By Bob Howie
Copyright 2010
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