Photos courtesy of WikiCommons
“WE KNEW WHAT A BIG JOB IT WAS— SOME OF THE TEAM HAD ALREADY TAKEN A LOOK AT THE AIRCRAFT. IT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO BE TAKEN APART.” — Howard Lovering
Photo courtesy of Peggy Nuetzel
the cradles that were so important to hold the large parts of what was a very fragile structure.” Contrary to what some might think, the Spruce
Goose, while colossal, wasn’t indestructible. “Most of it was laminated birch, which was really beautiful,” affirms Lovering, “and some parts were very thick—but some of it was really like an eggshell. Te weight, as we remember, was not the issue; it was the size, and how fragile parts of it were.” Te collective fear for the disassembly and transport
crews was that they would ultimately destroy large parts of the iconic aircraft. “Te firms that developed the cradles might have done some of the most detailed work of the entire disassembly.” Te hundreds of thousands of fasteners had to be reversed out, not cut. “Little pieces had to go into these cradles, and they had very minimal tolerances. Stuff had to fit. I’m not an engineer; we marveled at much of that work,” Lovering said. Plans called for the Spruce Goose to be broken down into 38 elements. Tirty-four of which were driven to McMinnville by truck. Te remaining 4 —the fuselage, the wings, and the vertical stabilizer—went by barge. Lovering remembers the equipment in use on the
project pretty much running the full spectrum. “You had everything from what the aerospace mechanics had on their belts in order to reverse fasteners all day long to cranes for the dome removal, and then the barges, tugs, and other transporters—both land and water,” he says. “For the water journey, we weren’t as worried about weather as we were about salt water intrusion into the aircraft—which could cause the wood to ‘de-lam’—so we had to shrink-wrap it.”
3M donated the shrink-wrap because they admired
the project, and it became the largest item, at that time, that had ever been shrink-wrapped.
26 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2016 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE As a testament to the collective coordination and
expertise within the project, the Goose was ready for transport by late October 1992. Te journey went up the West Coast, then up the Columbia and Willamette Rivers to Portland—where the H-4 remained for several months until water levels permitted the huge structures to safely pass under the Willamette’s many bridges. To this day, Spruce Goose remains the longest and highest load to ever pass through Willamette Falls locks. Te rest of the trip was made on dry land, via a caravan of trucks that stretched more than a quarter-mile down the highway. Peggy [Nuetzel] had the rare permission to close down the highways to get the caravan of parts into McMinnville where the temporary storage property for the plane was located. On Feb. 27, 1993, about 10,000 people welcomed
the Goose to McMinnville Airport. Temporary hangars were built as housing for the aircraft, while volunteers worked on the restoration. In 2001, re-assembly of the Hughes Flying Boat was completed in the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum—a world-class institution with the mission: “To inspire and educate, to promote and preserve aviation history, and to honor the patriotic service of our veterans.” Te popular institute now serves as a home for the
Spruce Goose, as well as a collection of other vintage and rare aircraft. Lovering explains that the project cost around four million dollars. How something of this importance and scale travelled from Long Beach to Oregon wine country might always be a lingering question, according to Lovering. But one detail will most certainly not be forgotten. “We were hired as consultants, not as regular staff, but as museum consultants to that project for a year and a half—full-time, and travel. And when we look back on it, it’s one of the great adventures of our lives.” y
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