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!)