Rea E. Hopper; Helped Design Spruce Goose

Rea E. Hopper, a longtime associate of Howard Hughes whom Hughes selected as his chief designer for the Spruce Goose, has died.

His daughter, Polly Whittell, said her father was 85 when he died Friday in Santa Monica of pneumonia.

Hopper, a graduate of Caltech, joined Hughes in 1939 after 10 years at Douglas Aircraft Co., where he helped design the DC-3.

Hughes lured him to his aircraft plant in Culver City for what evolved into a seven-year project to construct the largest airplane ever built.

The Spruce Goose, 219 feet long with a 319-foot wingspan and a tail section eight stories high, was made of birch because of World War II restrictions on metal.

The Spruce Goose made only one flight--in 1947. That was to quiet congressional critics who maintained that the government had invested $18 million in a plane that could not get off the ground.

Originally, tests had not been planned until 1948 but Hughes took the controls Nov. 2, 1947, with Hopper at his shoulder giving him instructions as the mammoth plane climbed to 70 feet and landed 70 seconds later in Long Beach Harbor.

The craft was designed to ferry 750 troops over oceans dominated by Japanese and German submarines during World War II. After the war the government lost interest. The plane is now a tourist attraction parked under a mammoth shell next to the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

During the yearslong development project, Hopper was said to have been one of only a handful of men who had direct access to Hughes. The design group, Hopper’s daughter said, met evenings at Hughes’ home in Beverly Hills after their regular jobs.

Hopper continued to enjoy Hughes’ confidence even after the eccentric billionaire became reclusive, his daughter said.

In 1951, Hopper was named chief engineer of Hughes Aircraft with responsibility for such projects as the D-2 and XF-11 planes and such giant helicopters as the Apache.

Three years later, he was named general manager of the Hughes Tool Co. Aircraft Division. He retired in 1983 as senior vice president of Summa Corp., which became the Hughes holding company after the sale of the tool company.

In addition to his daughter, Hopper is survived by his wife, Mary, another daughter, Paige, sons Christopher and Randolph, two sisters and four grandchildren.