Page 11 - Sanger Herald 10-11-18 E-edition

Lifestyles
SANGER HERALD • 3B • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2018
Spruce Goose continues to stir the imagination
Sanger
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Howard Hughes created turbulence in whatever he did, whether it involved making millions or designing record-setting aircraft.
But Dick DeKoning, who got to know the business mogul working on perhaps his most famous aerospace project of its time, remembered one particular and dapper trait about his sometimes eclectic boss.
“Every time I saw him, he always had his hat on,” DeKoning said.
That would be Hughes’ whiskey-colored fedora, the one he wore when piloting the H-4 Hercules, also known as the “Spruce Goose,” on its lone voyage of about a mile in Long Beach Harbor on Nov. 2, 1947. DeKoning wasn’t there.
However, DeKoning spent two years working for Hughes Aircraft Co. in Building No. 15 in Culver City before that historic flight helping to fabricate what would be the largest airplane ever built. The Spruce Goose now rests in the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Ore. just outside Portland drawing crowds of onlookers and perpetuating its legend.
DeKoning, 92, spent a lot of time fabricating the superstructure of the massive wooden plane. He was a lofter and generated curves for the cross- section support pieces making up the spine of the fuselage. Lofting is a drafting technique, since replaced by computerized design, that was used in the construction of ships and aircraft. He would trace out full-sized templates on metal.
“Curve coordinates had to be calculated,” DeKoning said. “Lofting was done on the floor.”
He said templates were made and calculations had to be exact, down to “three- thousandths of an inch on the tolerance.”
The H-4 began as a war- time project and an answer to the Germans’ submarines sinking hundreds of Allied ships and strangling commerce on the high seas. U-boats sank about 2,779 ships during the war, with most of the damage coming in 1942. American industrialist Henry Kaiser partnered with Hughes for the U.S. government contract to build three of the experimental transport
Daniel’s Important Decisions — Part 1
Over the next few of weeks, we will observe a young man named Daniel.
The text for this is found in Daniel 6:1-23. Daniel grew to be a man of integrity striving to follow the Lord in everything he did. Someone observed that only mediocre people are always at their best. The fine line between success and failure is really quite broad and well defined.
It is not coincidental that some people excel at what they do, while others barely get by. There are reasons why we achieve, and there
Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum and Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Dick DeKoning talked about his days working on the Spruce Goose to Sanger Rotary. He said Howard Hughes always wore his distinctive hat when he came by the hangar.
a rice paper attached and two coats of spar varnish covered the exterior, DeKoning said. “There were no rivets like on an aluminum aircraft to cause drag.”
DeKoning said Building 15 had lots of windows. “It was the most pleasant place to work,” he said. “Even in the loft, where I worked.”
Hughes didn’t meet the timeline envisioned by the government. He had spent $23 million by the time the Spruce Goose was complete, and the war was over. The Allies won. DeKoning said the Senate War Committee took his former boss to task. “Washington, D.C. said, ‘It will never fly,’” he said.
Perhaps to prove them wrong, Hughes decided to take the Spruce Goose for a test run in Long Beach. DeKoning said the technicians Hughes brought along said the tail started wobbling during the flight.
The project didn’t end DeKoning’s aviation career, but it did spell the end of his tenure at Hughes Aircraft. He went to work for Northrup on the P-61 Black Widow, which was introduced in 1944. “Most were painted black because they flew at night,” he said.
Then the war ended, and DeKoning went to college, UCLA. “It was $27 a semester,” he said. He went on to graduate from the University of California Santa Barbara. DeKoning had a long engineering career that included designing a school in Brazil.
But he never returned to designing aircraft.
Lee Delap, a Rotary member, said he saw the Spruce Goose when it was on display in Long Beach. And Mike Viar, who attended the meeting at which DeKoning spoke, saw it in McMinnville. “It’s an extraordinary plane,” he said.
The Spruce Goose is the centerpiece of the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, and curators say, “This massive airplane stands as a symbol of American industry during World War II.”
Those who shell out a nominal fee can also get a tour of the cockpit.
The reporter can be contacted by email at nemethfeatures@gmail.com or by phone at the Herald at (559) 875-2511.
complements rather than contrasts the behavior of the world. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Daniel chose character over comfort. He had the courage to be different. God honored him for it.
Next Week: Daniel excelled because he chose discipline over disorder.
Pastor Sam Estes is city advance director and facilitates the Sanger Community Task Force that meets the first and third Tuesdays every month. He can be reached at pastorsam51@gmail.com.
aircraft. Kaiser eventually pulled out, but Hughes continued with the project.
“To get this thing going, it was really pushed to the limit,” DeKoning said. “Kaiser got frustrated.”
DeKoning, who lives in Fresno, spoke of his experience recently to Sanger Rotary. He said the project is one he would never forget, one that even now makes him marvel at the massive airplane’s scope, size and significance.
The H-4 was originally dubbed the HK-1, similarly named to the H-1 in which Hughes set a speed record in 1937, and didn’t have an easy beginning. The aircraft was designed to haul troops — about 750 — and cargo, and its massive size was considered radical but necessary for the war effort.
“All Kaiser and Hughes had to do was to build an airplane bigger than any the world had ever known and do it without aluminum and critical materials and without hiring any aeronautical engineers or specially skilled personnel from other companies,” wrote Graham Simons in “Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose: The Story of the HK-1 Hercules.”
The project got the go-ahead in September 1942, three years after
are reasons why we fail. Daniel broke the mold of mediocre living. He excelled in a social environment where the majority of his countrymen were content with the status quo. When examining Daniel’s life, you’ll quickly discover that his fame did not happen by chance. Instead, you’ll find that his rise to power can be traced to some important
decisions.
Daniel’s first decision
was to choose character over comfort. In a short period of time, Daniel developed a reputation. He was known to be honorable and ethical. His closet was completely clean. There
Germany invaded Poland with ground troops supported by a Luftwaffe bombers. The project was supposed to cost $18 million, a princely sum in those days. But it went over
reacted.
DeKoning said he
remembered the era. Life changed even for a young man living near Los Angeles. “Air raids were a common occurrence,” he said. “You got four gallons of gas a week.”
He also said Culver City was in the sticks back then. “We called it Asthma Gulch because it was always foggy back then,” he said.
In spring 1943, DeKoning was 17 and “took all the drafting courses I could.” He was 4F, meaning the military rejected him because of damage to his
out with this new engine, an R-4360 Wasp Major. It could reach 250 mph and had a range of 3,000 miles. We were pretty excited.”
The engine was American-made and had 28 cylinders and the largest displacement of an aviation piston engine to be mass produced in the United States, according to theaviationzone.com. Each propeller had a diameter of 17 feet 2 inches.
The fuselage was massive, DeKoning said. “You could put two railroad cars in there and still have room left over.”
And the term “Spruce Goose” is a misnomer, he said. “Duramold covered the plane.”
Duramold, produced by Roddis Lumber and Veneer Co in Marshfield, Wis., was in fact made from layers of yellow birch cut at 1/90th of an inch. Those layers were sandwiched together via “electrostatic glue- setting, a process in which high frequency electrical energy was used to effect the cure of synthetic resin adhesive by raising the temperature of the glue,” wrote Sara Witter Connor in “Wisconsin’s Flying Trees in World War II.”
“The result was an immense wooden airframe able to withstand the stresses of flight without being too heavy.”
DeKoning said Hughes was familiar with the product. “Hughes had used the Duramold in his H-1,” he said. “It wasn’t something new to him. (The Duramold) was applied with epoxy and nails. Then the nails were removed. It was sanded. Wood filler was applied. Sanded again.”
Then sealer was added,
your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self- control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.” 2 Peter 1:5-9.
At times, the modern church more often
'Every time I saw him, he always had his hat on,' — Dick DeKoning about Howard Hughes
budget.
Simons wrote that cost
overruns were written into the contract. “It is not difficult to understand that no company would accept a development contract at a fixed price,” he said. “When you are dealing with experimental projects, it means that that it has never been done and no one can predict how much it will cost.”
Military aircraft can be expensive to develop. The B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft program cost $45 billion in the 1990s, with each model coming in at a cool $2.1 billion, according to financesonline.com.
The Spruce Goose quickly became controversial in Washington, D.C. A war stirred fears, and congressional leaders
head caused by mastoiditis. He got the job with Hughes Aircraft. Part of his test was to create a metal template that had an exact 90 degree angle. He completed it to perfection and brought it to Sanger to show the gathered
Rotarians.
DeKoning described the
scale of the project as if he was still awed by its bulk. “You get the idea when people stand there,” he said, referring to an old black- and-white image showing workers next to the tail, which nearly scraped the top of Building 15 at about 80 feet. The plane itself was 219 feet long, but the wing span measured a whopping 320 feet.
“The plane had eight engines,” DeKoning said. “Pratt & Whitney just came
PASTOR’S CORNER
were no skeletons waiting to haunt him. Even Daniel’s enemies found him trustworthy.
I deliberately misrepresented my income. Now I cannot sleep. Enclosed is a check for $150 for taxes. If I still can’t sleep, I will gladly send you the rest.”
Unfortunately,
we are living in
a time when it is extremely easy to compromise our integrity. Who would care or know if I take some supplies home from the factory or have someone else punch my time card? Who is going to say anything if I stretch the truth or sneak an answer on an exam or cheat on my income tax return.
A letter to the IRS stated: “Dear sirs, Last year when I filed my income tax return,
Pastor Sam Estes
It is easy to compromise our virtue especially when this type of behavior has become the accepted norm. But such compromise will cost you the joy of unhindered
fellowship with the Lord. In your life, strive for ethical and moral purity. Like Daniel, be willing to be different. The apostle Peter declared, “Make every effort to add to