Spruce Goose gets new nest

Howard Hughes' wooden airplane moves into Oregon museum

In this story: Origins of Spruce Goose How plane landed in Oregon RELATED STORIES, SITES

MCMINNVILLE, Oregon (CNN) -- Over the next six months, restoration crews will be piecing the Spruce Goose, the "world's largest aircraft" built by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, back together now that it has moved into its new home.

"We have to have the wings within 1/5,000th of an inch so the bolts actually go through the holes, and that's going to be quite tricky," said Mike Wright, the manager in charge of restoration and assembly.

The size of those wings, each stretching out 160 feet (48.5 meters), is part of the challenge of putting the largest plane ever flown back together again.

Huge sections of the 79-foot (23.9-meter) tall and 218-foot (66.1-meter) long wooden aircraft were moved Saturday into its new home, the Capt. Michael King Smith Evergreen Aviation Educational Institute, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Portland.

The famous plane was designed by Henry Kaiser during World War II. Originally called the HK1, it was intended to transport up to 750 allied troops away from the danger of German submarines.

Hughes built the "flying boat" under a U.S. government contract that was filled with restrictions.

Evergreen curator Tracy Buckley said one restriction was that the plane "would use non-critical war materials. So rubber and metal were just out of the question."

The wooden aircraft was derisively nicknamed the Spruce Goose even though it was crafted almost entirely from laminated birch. A government inquiry was launched when the plane was overdue and over budget.

Hughes proved the plane could fly on November 2, 1947, when he sat down at the controls and piloted the plane about a mile along Long Beach, California.

But the Spruce Goose never flew again. Hughes spent millions of dollars keeping it flight ready inside a hangar, away from public view, until a few years before his death in 1976.

By 1982, the unique plane was put on display by Disney at Long Beach.

When the company lost interest, Capt. Michael King Smith, the late son of Evergreen Aviation's founder, convinced the Aero Club of Southern California to allow him to build a permanent home for the airplane in Oregon.

The disassembled aircraft then began a complicated journey by barge, first up the Pacific coast to Portland, Oregon, then up the Willamette River to McMinnville.

"From 1992-to-93, it had to be stored temporarily until the rivers were at the right levels so we could barge it again," explained Buckley. "We made all kinds of world records in barges."

It took 138 days to complete the 1,055-mile (1,688-kilometer) move to a temporary facility.

Years later, on September 16, 2000, the Goose moved across Highway 18 to its final home at the museum, which left one wall intentionally unfinished so that the pieces of the plane could be moved inside.

The museum and the Spruce Goose are expected to be completed next spring for the facility's grand opening.

CNN Correspondent Keith Oppenheim contributed to this report.

The 20th Century: Howard Hughes

Evergreen International Aviation, Inc.
Spruce Goose - HK-1 Hughes Flying Boat Official Website
All Aviation Flightline Online - Spruce Goose
Howard Hughes
Invention & Technology - Howard Hughes

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.