Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum is an aviation museum which displays a number of military and civilian aircraft and spacecraft, most notably, the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose". The museum is located in McMinnville, Oregon, across the street from the headquarters of Evergreen International Aviation. Oregon Route 18 separates the museum from the company operations and McMinnville Municipal Airport (KMMV). An IMAX theater opened in 2007, and a second exhibit hall focusing on the Titan II ICBM and space technology opened in 2008.

History

First envisioned by Capt. Michael King Smith, son of Evergreen International Aviation founder Delford Smith, the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum is the realization of his dream. The museum first began with a small collection of vintage aircraft on display in a hangar located at the headquarters and was called the Evergreen Museum. In March 1990, the current owner of the Spruce Goose, the Disney Corporation announced that it was closing the exhibit located in Long Beach, Calif. The Aeroclub of Southern California was notified and they immediately began the search for a new home for the Spruce Goose. In 1992, the Evergreen Museum won the bid with a proposal to build a museum around the aircraft and feature it as a central exhibit.

The disassembly of the aircraft began in August 1992. The plane was disassembled and shipped up the coast and up the Columbia River from Long Beach, Calif. to Portland, Ore. From there, it went down the Willamette River to Dayton, Ore. where it was transferred to trucks and driven to Evergreen International Aviation. It arrived in February 1993.

For the next 8 years, the plane went through a detailed restoration, where volunteers removed all the old paint and repainted the entire aircraft. This was only a small part of what was done as restoration.

In September 2000, the main parts of the aircraft were completed. The fuselage, wings, and tail were all transported across the highway and into the new museum building, which was still being built at the time. For the next year, crews spent their time assembling the wings and tail to the fuselage. These were completed in time for the museums opening on June 6, 2001. The control surfaces (flaps, ailerons, rudder, and elevators) were assembled later. The last piece was put into place on December 7, 2001.

Evergreen Museum was renamed the Evergreen AirVenture Museum in 1994. In 1997, the name was changed again, to the Captain Michael King Smith Evergreen Aviation Educational Center.

The Evergreen IMAX theater was completed in 2007, after much delay (initially, it was supposed to have been completed mid-late 2006).

Work began on the space museum building in September 2006. The building is identical to the aviation museum. It was completed in May 2008 and had its grand opening on June 6, 2008, exactly 7 years after the aviation museum had its grand opening.

Michael K. Smith was killed in a car accident in 1995. The F-15 displayed on a pedestal in front of the EIA headquarters (across the highway from the museum) and a new bronze statue on the pathway between the aviation and space museum are in memory of him.

As of mid-June, 2008, there are now two main large exhibit centers open to the public, consisting of aviation, where the Spruce Goose acts to anchor the other exhibits, and space flight, in another, matching, new large building. The current center of the space flight exhibit building is occupied by the SR-71 'Blackbird', which originally rested under one wing of the Spruce Goose. The museum is reportedly in talks with NASA officials to obtain one of the retired Space Shuttles at some time in the future, when it will become the centerpiece in the space flight exhibit center. Flight simulators for landing the space shuttle, as well as for Gemini capsule docking and the Lunar Excursion Module moon landing, are available for use by visitors now.

The newest exhibit building sits just east of the smaller IMAX theater building. The Titan II missile (never flown) which had rested beside the Spruce Goose, horizontally, during construction, now sits upright in a specially constructed display that includes two floors, silo fashion, below the ground floor.

Key holdings

instrument panel]]

  • Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress 44-83785
  • de Havilland D.H.-100 Vampire Mk.52
  • Douglas A-4 Skyhawk
  • Douglas C-47
  • Douglas DC-3A
  • Ford 5-AT-B Tri-Motor Tin Goose
    • This is a flying Trimotor.
  • Foton-6 Space Capsule
    • Unmanned version of the Vostok spacecraft (Russian space capsule)
  • Hughes H-4 Hercules
    • This is the famous "Spruce Goose," a flying boat with the largest wingspan of any aircraft ever built.
  • Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird
    • This Blackbird was one of three that were reactivated and used by NASA and the USAF in 1995. Its last flight was February 1, 1996.
  • Martin Titan II SLV Space Launch Vehicle
    • This particular missile is the last of 13 Titan IIs that were selected to be converted and used as weather platform launch vehicles. This was the only one out of the 13 not to be launched.
  • McDonnell Douglas F-15A Eagle
    • This aircraft is displayed on a pedestal at the Evergreen headquarters in memory of Michael King Smith
  • McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II
  • Mercury Space Capsule
  • Messerschmitt Bf 109G-10/U-4 610937
    • This is one of a very few Bf-109s that is capable of flying in its current condition.
  • Mikoyan i Guryevich MiG-17A "Fresco" (true Russian version)
  • MiG-21 Mikoyan i Guryevich MiG-21MF "Fishbed-J"
  • Mikoyan Guryevich MiG-29 "Fulcrum"
  • NASA X-38 V-131R

Also on display are many different aircraft engines.

The exhibit also includes many helicopters, reflecting Evergreen Aviation's original helicopter fleet.

(the "Spruce Goose") as currently seen in the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum]]

Gallery

References

External links

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Del Ball
24 September 2014
This is a must see museum absolutely fantastic, Nice snack bar with great hotdogs. Be sure to get your picture taken in the cockpit of the Spruce goose
Chris G
18 April 2013
61-7971 lives here. This is the most accurate SR-71 on display, and 1 of 2, reactivated when the program was brought back in 1995. She has logged 3512.5 hrs of flight time over the course of 31 years.
David Iglesias
18 August 2021
You can see the Spruce Goose (of The Aviator movie fame), and tour it on the inside with a volunteer guide for a little extra for your group. I’d highly recommend getting the tour, unique experience!
Elizabeth Martinez
2 November 2015
The museum, iMax and the water park are fun. The price for the water park though is a little bit too high for me. I would rather go else where and be able to buy more things with my kiddos.
Katsushi Takeuchi
25 January 2019
Large number of aircraft and spaceship display. Needed hours to see them all including a movie. Must place to go aircraft fans if you have chance to visit Portland. Less than one hour drive.
Paris Buttfield-Addison
29 March 2015
All around excellent museum. The docents were great too. Spruce Goose is huge and worth the visit by itself.
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3,463 people have been here
Map
510 Northeast Captain Michael King Smith Way, McMinnville, OR 97128, USA Get directions
Mon-Sun 9:00 AM–5:00 PM

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