Evergreen Air Museum Has An Oscar Night Party!

By ANN Senior Correspondent Kevin "Hognose" O'Brien

What are you doing Oscar Night (which, for the cinematically disinclined among us, is February 27th)? If you're at a loss for plans, consider Evergreen Aviation Museum's offer of "An Evening with Howard and Oscar." The museum promises it will be "an evening to remember," and given the planning that has gone into this special event at a special place, they're going to deliver on that promise.

Howard, of course, is Howard Hughes; Oscar is that statue awarded by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the year's outstanding accomplishments in cinema. The Martin Scorcese Hughes biopic "The Aviator" has received 11 Academy Award nominations, and conventional wisdom is that it will win a fair number of them. (We at Aero-News have been remiss in seeing the film; I'm still trying to get my skull around the idea of lightweight Leonardo DiCaprio as the brilliant, anguished Hughes). It's a big deal to the Museum because, well, they are the home of the amazing, unique H-4 Hercules flying boat, the "Spruce Goose," that was so important in Hughes's life, and that is the centerpiece of the film. The movie may not produce the Oscar sweep that the filmmakers, and the Museum, hope for, but what better way to find out that watching live feed on the big screen under the very Spruce Goose itself, with a crowd of other aviation buffs?

There should be a lot of fun in the wind-up to the broadcast. Refreshments will be served, and an organist will be playing famous Hollywood themes. The Aviator's special effects experts, New Deal Production Studios, will be on hand to make a special presentation on how they brought Hughes's great airplanes of the 1930s and 1940s to life (and in the case of his powerful XF-11 reconnaissance plane, to death in the form of a violent crash that the real Hughes barely survived). Attendees can cast their own Oscar votes in a straw poll (you have to laugh about that. How d'you think the Aviator will do in this crowd?). And finally, those that are willing to throw down some extra money -- which goes to the maintenance and restoration of the Spruce Goose and its cathedral-like home -- get a guided tour of the historic plane and a souvenir photo taken in Howard's own pilot seat. (if it wasn't "a night to remember," the picture can jog your memory).

The event lasts from 1730 to 2130 on Oscar night (Sun, Feb. 27). Tickets are available from the Museum at 503-434-4007; anyone may attend, although Museum members get a nice price break.

February 27th is, by the sheerest of coincidences, the date in 1993 that the enormous plywood airplane arrived at McMinnville from its previous home in Long Beach, CA, the city where it made its one and only flight in 1947. This can only bode well for the film's Oscar prospects.

The Museum, of course, consulted throughout the making of The Aviator so that the film would be technically accurate. Its interest in film doesn't end there, however. Soon to premiere on the Military Channel (formerly Discovery Wings) is the Museum's own documentary, Dream to Fly. It is narrated by former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite and will be available on DVD in the near future.

I visited the Museum in December, and had such a good time talking to the docents -- mostly folks who had long, exciting careers in aviation before retiring -- that I only saw half of the museum. The two less-talkative vets I was hanging out with saw the whole thing, and they were impressed as the devil, and neither one was even an aviator. I can testify that the museum docents are the world champions of Spruce Goose trivia. (Example: name notwithstanding, the structure of the massive machine is mostly birch plywood using a then-patented process called Duramold!)

The Evergreen Aviation Museum is also known as the Captain Michael King Smith Educational Institute. Mike Smith was an F-15 pilot in the Air Force who was cut down in the prime of life, not in a flying accident, but in a motor vehicle one. The museum was his "baby," and in his memory it's kept going, although in 2004 the painful decision was taken to stop flying some of the rarest, literally irreplaceable, aircraft. Oscar night, or anytime, The Museum's worth visiting if the Pacific Northwest is your home, or in your travel plans.

(Conflict of Interest Disclaimer: Hognose is not just a reporter in this case, he's also an Evergreen Aviation Museum member -- although he can't practically make it back there for this event. Drat!)

FMI: www.sprucegoose.org