goose.jpgDrJim, who blogs at Every Blade Of Grass, liked the expression so I decided to use it as the title of this post. Jim was commenting on the post yesterday about Miss Piggy.

Clickable image - Sitting in the H-4 Cockpit

As we continue to sort through all the old junk in the closets and drawers, we find little nuggets like this ancient photo of me sitting at the controls of The Spruce Goose. It was on a slide when I found it last week so I took it to the photo shop to have it scanned onto a CD ROM.

The story dates back to 1982 when I and a contingent from the Hughes (Aircraft) Radio Club were invited to take a private tour of the H-4 Hercules in Long Beach, CA, prior to opening the exhibit up to the public. The huge wooden airplane was in a dome adjacent to the Queen Mary.

We got the whole deal. We walked out into the wings of the plane where an engineer was stationed behind each of the eight giant R-4400 Pratt & Whitney radial engines. I even got to climb up on the top of the Goose (covered in plastic tarps) and walk on the wings and fuselage. It was incredible! Everything was there - the 20 passenger seats behind the cockpit, the radio rack with all of the original ARC radios from that era and the cockpit itself in its original condition.

howard.jpgOf course, I wasn’t the only guy to sit in the same seat occupied by Howard Hughes that day, but I was the best looking (according to The Better Half, that is).

My Mom (still around at age 90) says I was present the day Hughes lifted the Hercules off in Long Beach Harbor in 1948. My Dad had taken the family, Mom, me and my two brothers, to witness the taxiing-turned-test-flight. Sadly, I was taking a nap in the car and can’t remember the event. I was five at the time.