A Bittersweet Goodby to Spruce Goose

Like protective parents sending their firstborn off to college, members of the Aero Club of Southern California confessed that they were a little melancholy Thursday night when they gathered for the last time around the legendary Spruce Goose.

But for the original flight mechanics and crew members of the world’s largest aircraft, the impending transition from Long Beach tourist attraction to crown jewel of an Oregon air museum was something of a relief.

After sitting for a decade in the white dome in Long Beach Harbor, the majestic wings that span the length of a football field are thick with dirt and littered with pennies and deflated balloons. The glue that holds the wooden giant together has loosened in some places.

And although the historic craft is said to still be in excellent shape, some officials said it was “just luck” that 10 years in a vented dome without air conditioning or humidity control haven’t taken a greater toll.

“Disney never really was interested in it. It didn’t go with Mickey Mouse,” said 75-year-old Dave Grant, who was 29 when he sat as co-pilot to Howard Hughes during the Spruce Goose’s first and only flight--one mile--on Nov. 2, 1947. “I like that it will have a permanent home in a real museum. I never really thought of it as a tourist attraction.”

The Walt Disney Co., which has managed the Spruce Goose and the nearby Queen Mary since 1988, announced earlier this year that it would not renew the leases that expire Sept. 30. After a long search, the Aero Club, which owns the plane, elected to turn it over to Evergreen International Aviation Co. in McMinnville, Ore., where an air museum will be built to showcase it. The Queen Mary’s fate remains undecided.

Forty-five years after that short flight, some of the men who built the plane say it is finally headed for the dignified setting it has long deserved.

When the Spruce Goose came to Long Beach, a hole was cut in its side to allow access for tourists. Its delicate wood body has been cleaned with fire hoses. The Evergreen museum, which officials say will be held to Smithsonian standards, plans to restore the craft, regulate the air in which it is displayed and clean it with nothing harsher than soft brooms.

Disney cited annual loses in the millions for the four years it maintained the historic plane. But the corporation’s best efforts could not match the care given by Howard Hughes, who kept it swaddled in an environmentally controlled hangar on Terminal Island until his death in 1976.

“The Disney people have been pretty conscientious, but they are not airplane people,” said Jim Ragsdale, Aero Club vice president. “Now it will be in the trained hands of an aircraft museum. It will get good care.”

The arduous task of dismantling the 300,000-pound Hercules of an aircraft has already begun. The Goose sits on its cradle, its eight massive propellers plucked off. The dark pond that reflected its expansive belly has been filled in with wood, steel and dirt to accommodate the heavy machinery needed to take it apart. The pontoons will come off today.

By Sept. 28, the plane will be shrink-wrapped “like a sandwich” and rolled, in 38 pieces, out of the dome, a side of which will be removed as it was when the icon entered before a cheering crowd in February, 1982. Eight of the original flight crew, mechanics and designers--most of them now in their 70s--have been called in as consultants. Because the Spruce Goose is a historic artifact, its dismantling must be carefully recorded to ensure that it is reassembled exactly, officials said.

Working on a tight schedule as time runs out on the Disney lease, workers have already removed the engines. The wings are set to come down Sept. 14.

Thirty-four of the pieces will be moved by truck to Oregon. The four largest portions--the two wings, the fuselage and the tail section--will be transported by ocean barge to the Columbia River on Oct. 6 and transferred to a river barge.

Arrival in Oregon is scheduled for Oct. 29. A building is being constructed to house the plane until it is ready for public display, which is likely to be several years from now.

“For us it’s a renewing of the life of the flying boat, “ one official said.

But for new life to begin, one must end, and there is indeed a funereal atmosphere surrounding the magnificent plane as visitors crowd to see it in its Southern California setting one last time. Oddly, the lines to view the Spruce Goose, which never really took off as a tourist attraction, are said to be longer than they have been in years.