Spruce Goose

A visit to the Spruce Goose

On December 22, 2002 we visited the Evergreen Aviation Museum home of the Hughes HK-1 Flying Boat, affectionately known as the Spruce Goose (notwithstanding the fact that it is actually made of birch). While there we were treated to the rare privelege of being allowed inside the aircraft, which is not open to the general public. Here are some pictures from that visit.

The Evergreen Museum is well worth a trek up to Oregon. Even without the Goose it contains the most extraordinary collection of aircraft that I have seen outside the National Air and Space Museum. Most are in flyable condition.

The Good Stuff

The flight deck. Looking forward from about the middle of the flight deck. Original test flight instrumentation and radio equipment stations are on the left.

Wing root. Our guide, John, points to the entrance of the starboard wing root. A tall person could easily stand upright inside the wing.

Wing interior. Inside the wing root. There was no lighting in the wing, so it was not actually possible to see the image in this photograph "live". This image is illuminated entirely by camera flash.

Wing interior. Another shot inside the wing, pretty much identical to the previous one.

Pilot's seat. Howard Hughes sat on the left. Eight throttle levers are visible on both the pilot and co-pilot side, just inboard of the steering wheel/yoke.

Flight deck. Looking forward on the flight deck from about two-thirds of the way back. The seats in the foreground are presumably for visiting dignitaries. They recline, and they are actually much further apart than they appear. While reclining in one of the seats I my feet could not quite reach the seat in front of me. There are several more rows of seats behind the visible ones.

Pilot's seat closeup. A closer view of the pilot's seat. The right rudder pedal is just visible between the bottom seat cushion and the base of the panel of switches on the right. No toe brakes on this puppy! The wheel to the left of the yoke is the manual trim (there was also an electric trim control not visible in this picture.) The eight throttle levers are clearly visible to the right of the yoke, along with the artificial horizon, gyrocompass, and VSI. The "ball" of the bank-and-turn indicator is just visible below the yoke. The depth of field is deceiving. The instrument panel is actually a pretty huge distance away, siginificantly further than arm's reach. Flying the Goose on instruments would take pretty sharp eyes.

Engine nacelles Looking out the left-side window at the wing.

Flight engineer station And you thought a Lycoming O-350 was a maintenance nightmare! Imagine having to keep track of eight twenty-eight cylinder engines! The flight engineer station is just behind the copilot's seat.

The kid in the candy shop. That's me sitting in Howard Hughes's seat fifty-five years later! And a couple more: [1] [2]

More pictures

These are shots of the Goose taken from the floor of the museum. You can find more of these kinds of pictures on the Evergreen site.

[1] [2] [3]

Some more airplanes.

Poor quality pictures

These are shots that didn't turn out very well. They are mostly of the interior of the Goose's fuselage. They are dark and grainy because there wasn't enought light. But here they are anyway.

Midway down the fuselage looking aft. [1] [2]

A control console on the main deck. We weren't sure what this console does, but it seemed to be connected to the fire suppression system.

The inside of the nose cone.

The fire suppression system.