Hercules Pavilion at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon [Credit: Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum/Robert Zeh]
Key Takeaways:
The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum has undergone an internal "reset" to enhance visitor experience, allowing closer interaction with aircraft by removing barriers and encouraging guests to walk around them.
Aircraft displays have been re-organized by role or generation to demonstrate the evolution of design and how aircraft were tailored for specific missions.
The museum features iconic aircraft like the "Spruce Goose" and stealth jets, alongside emotionally impactful exhibits such as the Huey Dustoff Vietnam medical helicopter, around which a Vietnam memorial has been established.
The museum has just undergone what EASM CEO Scot Laney calls “a reset” to enhance visitors’ interaction with the aircraft on display by removing as many chains and barriers as possible but still maintaining safety—for example, to avoid hitting your head.
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Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.
![Hercules Pavilion at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon [Credit: Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum/Robert Zeh]](https://www.flyingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Hercules-pavilion.jpeg)
