Thursday September 6, 2012 Evergreen Museum McMinnville, OR

 On Tuesday we took the ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend, drove down the Hood Canal, and dry-camped in a  field near North Plains, OR.  The field is owned by friends of my niece Nicole. 
Not much happened on Wednesday and on Thursday we drove to McMinnville to the Evergreen Aviation Museum.

The next three photos are of the campus at the Evergreen museum.  The one to the left is the main building and houses the Spruce Goose. The photo below is the IMax theater to the left and the aerospace museum to the right.  The photo with the 747 on the roof is a water park.  If you look closely there are tubes coming out of the plane for the water slides.

One of the main attractions of the museum is the "Spruce Goose."  The plane was on display in Long Beach, CA.  When Disney bought the property they didn't have any plan for the plane and offered it to whomever made the best proposal.  Delford Smith, owner of Evergreen Aviation, wrote the best proposal and got the plane.  It was disassembled and shipped to McMinnville and a museum was created.  The museum opened in 2001.

The Spruce Goose was designed by Howard Hughes and was named the Hughes H-4, Hercules.  It only flew once, November 2, 1947.  Even though it's called the Spruce Goose it is actually made out of birch.  Wood was used because aluminum was hard to get during WWII.  The plane is 218' long, the wingspan is 320'11", and the height is 79'4".  

The photo to the left was taken inside looking toward the tail of the plane.  The photo below is looking toward the nose.  The spiral staircase was added to access the cockpit.  

Here's a photo of the tail of the plane with a helicopter in the foreground. The top of the tail is 80 feet off the floor.  The tail dwarfs the helicopter.

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The plane to the right is a torpedo bomber, the Avenger.  This is the plane that George H.W. Bush flew in the Pacific during WWII.  The plane had a three-man crew; pilot, gunner (three 50 caliber guns), and radio operator.  The plane could carry 2,000 lbs. of bombs or torpedoes. The Avengers sank 60 enemy ships.  Every Japanese ship that was involved with the attack on Pearl Harbor is at the bottom of the Pacific.

Here is one of the bombers that helped win WWII, the B-17 Flying Fortress. 12,731 were built and few have been saved. B-17s dropped more bombs than any other aircraft in the war, 640,000 tons.

At right is a photo of the tail guns (two 50 caliber guns) of a B-17.  Below is Kirk McFarland standing by one of the two "waist" guns that are behind the wings. Kirk is a docent and as we were talking with him we discovered that after he left the Navy he flew for American Airlines.  He flew with my brother Don for several years.  What a small world.



This photo is taken from behind the bomb bay with the cockpit in the background. 

The aerospace museum is very impressive.  Here's one of ten Mercury capsules that was used in the early years of the space program.  Below is a replica of the Apollo 11 capsule that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used to land on the Moon.

The last photo I chose to show is of a  Russian/Chinese MiG 17.  This is an advanced model of the MiG 15 that was first used in the Koren War.  This plane was used in the Vietnam War.

That's it for today.