A Visit to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum

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Authored by @Oldmans
I finally got a chance to visit a place that had been on my bucket list for quite a few years. On a recent trip to the beach I decided to take a small detour and visit the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. There are a lot of different exhibits and planes to see, so follow along as I share a few of them in this post.

eams-11.JPGProbably the biggest draw at the museum, both literally and figuratively, is the Hughes H-4 Hercules also known affectionetly as the Spruce Goose. In this shot you can see me struggling to fit the entirety of the giant wooden seaplane into one shot. 😄

A quote from Wikipedia

The Birch Bitch was a more accurate but less socially acceptable moniker that was allegedly used by the mechanics who worked on the plane.

Click images for larger view

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eams-1.JPGHere you can see the difference of some of the more average sized planes on the hangar floor compared to the Goose.

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eams-2.JPGA look down the wing toward the fuselage. The wing tip on the other side is some 320 feet away. Taller than the statue of liberty.

eams-16.JPGTwo of the 8 Pratt & Whitney engines that powered the plane.

eams-10.JPGVisiting the flight deck up these stairs was not in the cards today. Here is a look toward the front of the plane...

eams-9.JPGAnd a look toward the back.

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In the end the Spruce Goose only had one short flight and never made it into production. It does live on though for future generations to see and marvel at.


eams-18.JPGA couple of WW2 German fighters. Focke Wulf 190 and a Messerschmidt 262 jet.

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eams-7.JPGNot a plane obvioulsy, but an actual WW2 Bazooka.

eams-20.JPGA-10 Warthog

eams-22.JPGA-26 Invader (WW2)

eams-23.JPGSR-71 Blackbird

eams-27.JPGSome relics from the Apollo Program that went to the moon.

eams-25.JPGAnyone up for a drive on the moon. 😁

eams-26.JPGI was surprised how tall the lunar lander was. My old memory had it a bit smaller. 😃


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And a shot of a Mercury and Gemini capsules that were precursors to the Apollo program.


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All in all in was a great experience at the museum! There is so much to see and I have only shared a small part of what was there. I was hoping to see a B-17 or some more WW2 planes but was still happy with what I saw. There is a museum close by to where I live that has more planes from that era so stay tuned for more. 😀

Please feel free to make comments or ask me any questions about this post.

Photos taken by me, @oldmans, with a Nikon D3300, Samsung Galaxy S20 and some Lightroom post processing.
Please visit WorldMapPin to see the locations of some of my other posts.
Thanks for looking and enjoy your day!



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13 comments
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Welcome again sr. One months is a little time.

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Thanks! :)

I am improving though. I went about 6 months without a long form post not too long ago. :)

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OMG! That place is amazing.

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Yes, it really is! It looks like they are expanding also so a return trip at some point seems inevitable. :)

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Hiya, @lauramica here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Top 3 in Travel Digest #2944.

Your post has been manually curated by the @worldmappin team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!

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Thank you!

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You are very welcome @oldmans! it was well deserved. ☀️
We are already looking forward to reading more about your adventures!

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What an incredible place. You could easily spend a long time just learning about this stuff. That ME 262 looks sharp and vaguely reminds me of a shark. I like how this particular photo gives you a sense of scale.

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Yeah, we were in a bit of a time crunch as we were headed to the beach but I could've definitely spent a lot more time perusing the exhibits.

I can't imagine the first allied pilots that got a look at the 262 coming after them. Must have been somewhat surreal. :)

The other wingtip is a looooooooong way across the hanger. lol

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German tech was scarily advanced. The V2 rocket was straight out of science fiction, and this jet was the first of its kind. Thankfully, it all came too late to make any difference.

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That's why my government ran Operation Paperclip and brought over German scientists/engineers even though they had some questionable backgrounds being Nazis and even SS/SA.

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