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PUBLISHED: Sept. 19, 2000

All eyes on mammoth man-made Goose

By STARLA POINTER
Of the News-Register

As the sun rose on a pristine Saturday morning, migrating Canada geese took flight from fields near the McMinnville Airport. But no one paid the birds much attention.

All eyes were on another Goose: The HK-1 Flying Boat, nicknamed the Spruce Goose, as it was moved from a storage hangar to the new Michael King Smith Evergreen Aviation Educational Institute.

Erik Konrad, dad Joel Konrad and granddad H.L. Schafer respectfully circled the hull, which sat behind the Evergreen buildings on the south side of Highway 18.

"Wow," said Erik, 9, craning his neck. "It's one of a kind."

Howard Hughes originally intended for the Spruce Goose to be a prototype, the first of many huge planes that could transport servicemen, military equipment and supplies over long distances.

By the time the wooden craft was finished, it wasn't needed. World War II was over. Engineering innovations developed while building the Goose helped make possible modern jumbo jets, although today's biggest airliners still don't measure up in size.

"It was 'way before its time," Schafer told his grandson.

For about two years, Schafer had been promising Erik a trip to see the flying boat. He'd told his grandson about seeing the plane in Long Beach, Calif., where it was previously displayed. They'd built an 18-inch model of the plane together as well.

"Someday, I'm going to fly," Erik said.

Not in the Spruce Goose, of course. The giant wooden plane had its moment when it made a 70-second flight on Nov. 2, 1947.

But Hughes kept it flight-ready for another three decades, until his death in 1976. After that, it became a tourist attraction in Long Beach, eventually under control of Walt Disney.

In 1992, Evergreen acquired the display rights, took it apart and barged it to Oregon in pieces. The pieces sailed up the Willamette River in January 1993. That February, a parade welcomed trucks carting the Spruce Goose into McMinnville from a landing near Dayton.

It had been in storage ever since. But that didn't mean nothing was happening.

"This represents lots and lots of hours, lots and lots of volunteers," Bill Heveron of McMinnville said Saturday morning, showing people the hull and the wings.

Heveron is one of the many volunteers who helped remove a fire-retardant coating that had been applied before the Goose went on display in Long Beach. The fabric-covered structure has been freed of hundreds of pounds of gooey, dirty coating, he said.

For Heveron and other volunteers working on the restoration, Saturday was a big day, but not a climax. They're anticipating months more work to get the plane together and ready to greet the public as the centerpiece of the new museum.

"The museum will be great," said Paul Payne, who has been one of the lead restoration volunteers for several years. "You couldn't find a more unique centerpiece. Some museums are just airplanes, but this one will have a central theme."

Payne and other volunteers wore dark green T-shirts that said "relocation crew" on the back. They planned to walk alongside the fuselage - though not too close - as it was trucked across the highway.

The volunteers said they're eager to see the Spruce Goose whole again.

"We've been waiting so long for this," Payne said. "To me, it doesn't look all that big anymore. I know every square inch of it."

On Saturday, he was one of the few not impressed with the size of the Spruce Goose.

"Big" was on almost everyone else's lips. "It's hard to imagine a plane being bigger than this," said Harry Thomas, 11, of McMinnville.

Thomas had seen the Spruce Goose from a distance. He had also visited Evergreen's existing museum, where his dad is a volunteer. Still, he said, seeing the plane up close on Saturday was pretty neat.

Harry got a close-up view as he and other members of Boy Scout Troop 250 helped with crowd control. It was an easy job, he said, as people were pretty cooperative.

The Spruce Goose rolled right past Nancy Springer of Carlton and Delores Gorton of McMinnville, who'd set up lawn chairs to watch the show. "When it's sitting right in front of us, then you get the impact," Springer said.

Gorton recalled seeing the plane intact in Long Beach.

"It was large," she said, checking out the wingless hull. "Even when it's not together, it's still large."

Kym Snively of McMinnville was another person impressed by the plane's size.

"Amazing! It's SO big!" she marveled as the Goose rolled across the highway just yards in front of her car.

Snively had been on her way to the AT&T Broadband office adjacent to the airport, planning to park there, when police closed Highway 18. Luckily for her, she ended up with one of the best parking spots of all: three cars behind the first vehicle to be stopped.

"We watched this the first time when we lived at Old Stone Village," said Snively, who had her daughter, Amber, and a friend, Phil Lopez, along.

"I'm interested in the history, the size and just in seeing it again," she said. "I definitely will be back to see it put together."

As the trio sat on the hood of Snively's car, a color guard of American Legionnaires, Legion auxiliary members and Civil Air Patrol members led the parade across Highway 18.

The tail section slid across the road in less than a minute. The base was firmly held on a truck with the tip sticking far out on the truck's passenger side wiggling like the dorsal fin of a fish.

Evergreen founder and CEO Del Smith drove across behind the tail. His family rode along in his white jeep

The two wings came next. Each took considerably longer than the tail - about five minutes each, with several brief pauses as workers readjusted the rigging. Then each wing s-l-o-w-l-y turned two 90-degree corners on the museum access road.

Finally, the fuselage emerged from behind the Evergreen buildings, where it had been stored for more than seven years. Big, big, big, the crowd murmured.

Many were excited to see it for the first time without the white shrink wrap that protected it on its journey to Oregon.

Bringing up the rear of the parade were about 200 children dubbed goslings. They were attired in bright yellow T-shirts and chanting, "The Goose is loose"

Justin and Jeremy Mitchell of Salem were among the goslings.

"I find the Spruce Goose very interesting," said Justin, 8. "It was only flown once, you know."

His brother, 11, explained that they're both fascinated by the plane. They'd seen it before, courtesy of neighbor Bob Mahler, who works at Evergreen. But it was in its protective shelter then, not out in the open like on Saturday.

The boys said they enjoyed the whole day. Marching in the parade was their least favorite part, though.

"It was kinda boring," Justin said. Jeremy added, "It was slow, like one mile an hour. I'd rather go fast."

Unlike the brothers, most people thought the Spruce Goose moved fairly quickly Saturday, all things considered. In fact, DaniseStarla Pointer 9/18/0 Danise with an A Still of Seattle said she thought the moving company did a fine job.

Still is a little biased, of course, since her son Jeff is crew supervisor for the Robbins company.

"I don't often get to see his work," she said. "But I see the special things like this, with it's historic component."

To her son, who has been with the heavy moving company for 13 years, the size and weight of the plane were no big deal. But working in front of a crowd was a little unusual.

"We just had to shut out the extraneous and do our job," he said. "If you start thinking about the value of what you're hauling - the Spruce Goose is priceless - then that's when you might make mistakes."

When Still and other adults were gently moving the big wooden aircraft, dozens of children were playing rough-and-tumble games with soft foam models of the Spruce Goose.

The $5 foam planes were selling fast at several booths set up on either side of the highway. White Goose Move T-shirts for $10 and HK-1 hats for $10 also were popular items.

Local service organizations were doing a brisk business in doughnuts, hot dogs, elephant ears and other treats.

At the Walnut City Kiwanis booth, George Leppin said souvenir blankets were selling well at $49.95. The blankets depict numerous McMinnville landmarks: Linfield College, the Recreation Station, the Chamber of Commerce building, the hospital and, of course, the HK-1 Flying Boat.

"Sure, I'm interested in the Spruce Goose," Leppin said, as the fuselage cast a shadow over his booth. "It's something you know people will come and see."

Kent Kitts of McMinnville was one of many people who rode their bikes out to Evergreen on Saturday, rather than bucking the traffic. He's intrigued by the Goose.

"It was an incredible achievement, building all that with wood," he said. "It's probably the closest thing to a real dinosaur you or I will see."

Like Kitts and many other people who came to see the HK-1 Saturday, Kathy Hergenroeder of Salem was intrigued by the way the Spruce Goose was constructed.

She and her husband Mike, who works for Evergreen, have been watching the restoration process with interest. On Saturday, they got to examine the hull and the wings close-up.

"It's hard to imagine that thing's wood and a bunch of fabric," Hergenroeder said. "It's hard to believe they got the thing in the air. Amazing."

Kayla Stroik-Wilkinson, 9, said she was just as glad that the Spruce Goose wasn't in the air Saturday.

She enjoyed the event, she said, because she's interested in planes - the Spruce Goose itself and the B-17, the gliders and the other aircraft that were circling overhead.

But she's not interested in flying herself. "I feel safer on the ground," she said.