A real--and successful--"Spruce Goose"

Flight Journal, Jun 2000 by Bodie, Warren M

Although it was Howard Hughes who reaped gobs of publicity from the name that related to his HK-1 joint venture with shipbuilder Kaiser, it was the joint venture of Jack Northrop and Allan Loughead (Lockheed) that produced America's successful Spruce goose. Known as Vega 1, the Northrop-designed Lockheed was smooth, fast and flew like a dream. Moreover, it boasted a molded spruce/plywood fuselage and a fully cantilevered plywood-structure wing a decade and a half before the Hughes/Kaiser Goose even floatedlet alone became airborne.

And, the Vega 1 was affordable; in fact, the initial airplane was purchased for a "below cost" measly $12,000 by George Hearst Jr. for use by his San Francisco Examiner newspaper. The first Vega 1, named Golden Eagle; was one of the eight entries to take off on August 16, 1927, in the Dole Race to Hawaii. Four airplanes crashed on takeoff or failed to get much beyond the Golden Gate of San Francisco Bay, and four entries, including Golden Eagle, continued on the 2,439-mile overwater venture. Sadly, the Vega 1 was never seen again.

Despite this tragic start,Lockheed's Vegas became winners in many record-breaking events. They were so successful that even the Great Depression failed to diminish their popularity, although dozens of other fire aircraft reached oblivion

The oldest flying Vega--completed on January 20, 1929, and owned by Tallmantz Aviantion-is seen here in 1964 during a publicity event in the colors of Varney Air Transport, predecessor of Continental Airlines. Still as beautiful as the day it was built, it was passed on to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1966.

-Warren M. Bodie