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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: JULY 11, 1992

Announcement of move brings back memories

By Dianne Smith Glei
Of the News-Register

The news that the Spruce Goose will sail to McMinnville brings vivid memories.

I was there the last time the huge flying wooden boat was moved to a new site as the cornerstone of a museum. That was in 1982 in Long Beach, Calif.

The plane was barged from its storage location in Long Beach Harbor to its new home in one of the world's largest clear-span aluminum domes, built over the water near the Queen Mary across from downtown.

Watching the dome go up was fascinating - it suddenly dominated the skyline. It is 415 feet wide, 130 feet tall and has a floor space of 135,300 square feet, most of which is taken up by the plane. The plane itself is much, much larger than a Boeing 747.

Even next to the Queen Mary, which is three football fields long (900 feet) it is enormous.

The dome cost $4 million to build in 1981.

I was an editor for the Long Beach Press-Telegram at the time and had a sneak preview of the Spruce Goose exhibit.

It was incredible to walk through the long, dimly lit hallway into the dome, winding my way into the main exhibit area. Suddenly, around the corner, there it was. Unbelievable.

Surrounded by floodlights, the plane seemed to rise like the Phoenix. The way the plane was suspended over a pool of water accentuated its size. It was awesome and caused a gasp of disbelief.

It's hard to imagine something that big could fly, but it did - once. It lifted a few feet off the ground over Long Beach, with Howard Hughes at the controls. The reclusive billionaire built the plane during World War II and then stored it. Four decades later, the Spruce Goose exhibit was opened to the public.

I'm excited about seeing the plane again. It certainly will be the centerpiece of Del Smith's aviation museum.

I can't quite imagine it being barged up the Yamhill River, but this time, it will be without its wings and tail section.

I'm glad Evergreen and Del Smith won the bidding to bring it to McMinnville. It seems a fitting end to the saga of the plane, being owned again by an aviation pioneer.

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