Hughes Flying Boat H-4 (HK-1) Hercules (“Spruce Goose”)

Introduction - Move to Oregon - Description

The Move to Oregon
The move to Oregon brought a new set of problems for the Flying Boat and Evergreen addressed the great challenge of disassembling, packaging, transporting the aircraft head on. Crews, (including some of the original flight crew!) carefully planned and documented the disassembly to ensure accurate reassembly for the seaplane’s future display. Next, workers created a 60-foot by 60-foot window in the dome to allow for removal of the aircraft. After disassembly and shrink-wrapping, the sections were rolled out of the dome and onto an ocean barge. Leaving the Port of Long Beach on October 13, the Flying Boat sailed north through the Pacific Ocean. After traveling 980 nautical miles, 20 miles off the coasts of California and Oregon at an average speed of 8 knots, the control surfaces, horizontal stabilizers, wings, vertical tail, and fuselage arrived in Portland, Oregon at sundown October 18. Thousands of people celebrated the arrival with an official proclamation of “Spruce Goose” Day on October 22, at Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

The water levels of the Willamette River delayed the Flying Boat’s trip from Portland to McMinnville. The water was either too high for passage under bridges or too low for migration from the river to land. The large pieces remained in storage for several months. So crews pulled the barge carrying the mammoth Flying Boat to an industrial park in Vancouver, Washington and off-loaded it for storage to await adequate river levels to complete the journey upriver to McMinnville. Finally, conditions improved and the Flying Boat slowly made her way up river, setting new records at historic Willamette Falls, for the longest and highest load ever to pass through the locks. After landing near Dayton, Oregon and off loading at the Weston Bar, the caravan of pieces stretched more than 1,500 feet down the narrow road.

The Flying Boat arrived in McMinnville at Evergreen International Aviation on February 27, 1993. A Spruce Goose homecoming parade converged down the final mile of the 138-day, 1,055-mile trip from Long Beach. Joining the convoy for a Spruce Goose Homecoming Parade down the final mile, were vintage military vehicles, classic automobiles, antique fire and farm equipment, equestrian groups, school bands, Scout troops and the "Evergreen Air Force" flying overhead.

Restoration and Re-assembly
Between 1992 and 2000, the massive parts underwent preservation and restoration at the hands of dedicated volunteers in a temporary storage area. They replaced the deteriorated fabric on the control surfaces and removed the old paint from the fuselage, wings, vertical stabilizer, and floats. The paint removal exposed inspection stamps, signatures of men and women who worked on the original construction, and evidence that the wood laminate had passed wind shear tests. The crew sanded the large pieces of the Flying Boat, primed them with a white latex finish, and repainted them in the original flight color of silver.

Meanwhile in August 1999, construction began on the Flying Boat’s new hangar. A year later staff and volunteers prepared for the big move and on September 16, 2000, the fuselage, wings and tail slowly made their way to the new building. Preparing for the arrival of the fuselage, workers positioned the wings on the right and left, just as they had in 1946 during her first assembly. It took a little over a year to reassemble the Flying Boat. Before assembly, the crew lowered the fuselage into a seven-foot pit at the Museum's center south side. Volunteers assembled the wings and vertical tail first, followed a short time later by the assembly of the pylons.

Assembly crews attached the eight Pratt and Whitney R-4360 engines to the wings and they painted and prepared the propellers before assembling them to the engines. Next, they completed the assembly of the horizontal stabilizers, flaps, ailerons, rudder and elevators. On December 7, 2001, the 60th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, crews assembled the tail cone, signifying the completion of the Flying Boats’ incredible journey!

Now commonly called the "Spruce Goose," the Hughes Flying Boat has endured to become a popular cultural icon of American history. She tells a story of wartime sacrifice, determination and technological development. She still is the largest wooden seaplane ever built, and she proved that jumbo flying aircraft and large lift capability were possible. She was decades ahead of her time in the early 1940s, and today, thanks to the many dedicated to her survival, she rests among other historic aircraft at the Evergreen Aviation Museum.

The Names
Originally designated HK-1 for the first aircraft built by Hughes-Kaiser, the giant was re-designated H-4 for Hughes’ fourth aircraft, when Henry Kaiser withdrew from the project in 1944. Other names include “Hercules,” which resulted from a Hughes employee’s naming contest. The press insisted on calling the Hughes Flying Boat the “Spruce Goose,” a name that Howard Hughes despised. The funny thing about this nickname is that most of the huge plane is actually made of birch, with only small amounts of maple, poplar, balsa, and, yes, spruce. The Hughes engineers chose birch because of its light weight, strength, and resistance to splitting, dry rot and deterioration.

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