12:29 PM PDT on Thursday, June 15, 2006

By ED VOGEL, Las Vegas Review-Journal

CARSON CITY, Nev. -- Slowly the huge airplane built up speed as it plowed through the waters of Long Beach Harbor. At about 90 mph, the H-4 Hercules finally was airborne. And it flew 70 feet off the surface for all of a mile that afternoon of Nov. 2, 1947.

AP photo

Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" glides over the water in this Nov. 2, 1947, file photo in Long Beach, Calif. In 1947, Hughes flew the Spruce Goose to prove a point to Sen. Owen Brewster, R-Maine, who led the Senate War Investigating Committee.

"I knew what the hell he was going to do," 88-year-old Gardnerville resident John Glenn said of the pilot, Howard Hughes. "He wasn't supposed to fly it, only taxi on the water. But he had a point to prove."

"Howard Hughes was a great pilot," added Don Smith, 89, also of Gardnerville.

Smith and Glenn were longtime Hughes Aircraft Co. employees who served on the 18-man crew that flew with Hughes on the flying boat that the news media sarcastically called the "Spruce Goose." Hughes hated the term.

Their flight lasted less than a minute, but it gave them a lifetime of memories. Only three members of the Spruce Goose crew are still living, and the two Douglas County residents hope to be around to attend the 60th anniversary celebration next year at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Ore., where the Spruce Goose has been hangared since 2001.

Smith and Glenn share an abiding faith in Hughes' skills as a pilot and an aircraft designer.

The Hughes they knew was a genius, not an eccentric multimillionaire who watched Charlton Heston movies from his Desert Inn penthouse night after night and stored his urine in Mason jars.

"I was never afraid flying with Howard," Smith said. "It wasn't a risk. He was a perfectionist. He wanted everything done just so."

Smith was flight engineer on the Spruce Goose. That meant he controlled the eight, 3,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines on the 300,000-pound aircraft.

"That was the most horsepower I ever had under my hand," Smith said.

Glenn was the power plant engineer. He took care of the electricity and the hydraulics.

"I was so damn busy I didn't think about what was going on," Glenn said about those moments on the Spruce Goose. "Then it got quiet. The plane was off the water. Howard Hughes was no dummy. The Spruce Goose was a wonderful airplane. Still is."

Hughes spent a lot of time with workers at his Culver City, Calif., plant where the plane was constructed. He never exhibited strange behavior around his staff, and Smith considered him his friend.

"You talked with him, but you really didn't get to know him," Glenn said. "He was all business. But he treated us good and paid us well."

As a pilot, Hughes had set a speed record of 322 mph in 1937 by flying his H-1 racer from Los Angeles to New York in seven hours and 28 minutes. A year later, he flew a Lockheed Super Electra around the world in a record 91 hours.

In 1947, Hughes flew the Spruce Goose to prove a point to Sen. Owen Brewster, R-Maine, who led the Senate War Investigating Committee.

During hearings, Brewster had charged Hughes with war profiteering. Hughes had been paid $18 million by the federal government to develop the Spruce Goose and two other aircraft for use in World War II. They never were delivered.

The plan had been to use the Hercules to fly 750 troops at a time across the Atlantic. Industrialist Henry Kaiser, builder of the "Liberty" ships, had suggested a flying boat after too many of his troop ships were sent to the bottom of the ocean by German U-boats.

Brewster called the aircraft a "flying lumberyard" and predicted it never would fly.

Hughes quickly responded: "The Hercules was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest plane ever built. It is over five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field. That's more than a city block. Now, I put the sweat of my life into this. I got my reputation all rolled up in it. I have stated several times that if the Hercules fails to fly, I will leave this country and never come back. And I mean it."

So he returned to California and flew the plane. The War Investigating Committee never conducted another hearing.

Both Glenn and Smith have seen "The Aviator," director Martin Scorcese's 2004 opus on Howard Hughes.

They question the accuracy of scenes showing Hughes' descent into insanity, but say the flying scenes and those depicting his clash with Brewster were on target.

Glenn and Smith discovered Nevada's Carson Valley during trips to Lake Tahoe. Glenn moved to the Minden-Gardnerville area in 1960, while Smith arrived in 1984. They remain close friends.

Although the Spruce Goose flew only once, Katherine Huit, director of collections at the Evergreen Aviation Museum, said it brought lasting benefits.

Hydraulic systems used in automobiles came from Spruce Goose advancements, she said. The fire suppression system used to protect the plane's eight engines became standard on all aircraft.

The "flying boat," as Huit prefers to call it, was the predecessor to transport aircraft that are common today, she said.

With a 320-foot wingspan, the Spruce Goose covers most of the museum hangar where it and 80 other planes are displayed.

It is so big that most planes rest under its wings.

Smith and Glenn wish Hughes had flown the Spruce Goose again. The plane was designed for 3,000-mile trips across the Atlantic using 15,000 gallons of fuel.

But the war was over and the government no longer needed a big transport plane, Smith said.

"The one shortcoming was the hydraulics system, but he rebuilt that and got the plane ready to fly again several times," Smith said. "He would set a date to fly it but then couldn't make it."

Hughes reportedly would fire any worker who called his Hercules the Spruce Goose, but Huit said with passing years it became an endearing term.

"I call it the flying boat, and people like Don Smith call it that, too," she said. "But nobody else knows it as the flying boat. It is the Spruce Goose."