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“Eight hours, bottle to throttle.” That’s
a good rule to which all sane pilots adhere. However, there
are no FAA rules restricting the time between “throttle
to bottle.” If it’s fine wine pouring from the
bottle and the room is full of amazing air and spacecraft,
this rule-reversal makes for fun times. As a way of introducing
wine lovers to aviation history, or airplane lovers to wine
(or both), the 120,000- square-foot Evergreen Aviation and
Space Museum opens its huge glass doors to the McMinnville
Wine & Food Classic each spring.
McMinnville, Oregon, is home to the Evergreen facility strategically
located just across the highway from the mile-long paved
runway of the town’s airport. From the tarmac, you
can’t miss the huge, white and green Boeing 747 decorating
the lawn of the massive A-frame hangar. Looming in the floor-to-ceiling
glass wall, the airplane with the largest wingspan (320 feet)
of any aircraft ever built. The famous Hughes H-4 Hercules
seems to dwarf the jumbo jet. Nicknamed the “Spruce
Goose” by critics, the birch plywood and resin composite
construction was a technological tour-de-force in the 1940’s.
This centerpiece aircraft was capable of carrying 750 troops
and other war materials up to and including tanks. Lambasted
by a hostile Congress for its extreme cost overruns, the
World War II military-contract seaplane never made it to
war, or in fact to any other missions. Sitting in Howard
Hughes’ pilot seat on the expansive flight deck which
I’m pretty sure could easily hold my J-3. It’s
hard to imagine that all the research, time, money and grief
that went into this massive craft resulted in but one flight
of only about a mile at a maximum altitude of 70 feet. Even
that liftoff was not supposed to occur; speculation is that
Hughes pulled it off during high-speed taxi testing just
to prove it would fly.
Displayed around, above, and under the Spruce Goose are
more than 150 historic aircraft and exhibits, ranging from
man’s earliest efforts at flight to today’s jets,
each with its own story. Some favorites are a Wright Flyer
Replica, a DC-3, Beech Staggerwing, B-17 Flying Fortress,
Convair F-102A, Bell AH-1F Cobra and an F-15. Some of the
WW II era fighters are reputed to be the best of their types
in the world. Guided tours by volunteers are available, and
the museum has a gift shop, café, farm store with
wine tasting, and an impressive firearms display.
A short stroll across Captain Michael King Smith Way to
the 55,00 square-foot IMAX theater allows one to virtually
join Captain John Stratton in an F-15 Eagle during a combat
flight-training exercise, walk on the moon in 3D to the narration
of Tom Hanks, and follow the trail of Lewis and Clark’s
Corps of Discovery. It’s the most dramatic way to experience
these incredible and realistic adventures without getting
airsick, wearing a space suit, or taking a really long cross-country
hike.
My visit to the Evergreen campus happened to fall on the
first evening of the annual Wine & Food Classic, held
in the glass-walled Space Museum located just a couple of
Spruce Goose wingspans past the theater. Equal in size to
the aviation museum, this building features marvels from
the Sputnik Replica to a Skylab Airlock Training Mockup.
Specimens include a Titan II missile, replicas of the Gemini
spacecraft, the Lunar Module and the Lunar Roving Vehicle.
One can get up-close-and-personal with a Lockheed SR-71A
Blackbird (reminding me of fun story-telling retired Air
Force General/SR-71 pilot a few years ago at a different
event-wine was involved there, too) and stand under a Northrop
T-38A Talon. Plans are under way to add a real retired
Space Shuttle in the near future.
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