Hartke said that in addition to his many years of military flying, he completed extra training to be approved for flying the vintage craft.

“The trick is that you have to pay attention at all times,” he said.

Only 199 of the planes were constructed from 1925 to 1933 at a cost of about $42,000 each. The NC9645 has serial number eight. The aircraft carries 12 passengers, cruises at 122 miles per hour and has a range of more than 500 miles. Today, they're valued at up to $1.5 million.

The plane is now owned by the Liberty Aviation Museum of Port Clinton, Ohio, and is on loan to the Experimental Aircraft Association of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

This week’s trip to Oregon is a homecoming of sorts for the 88-year-old plane: For much of the 1990s, it was owned by Evergreen Vintage Aircraft and displayed at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville. It sat under the wing of Howard Hughes’ famed “Spruce Goose” and carried the nickname the “Tin Goose,” thanks to its shiny sheet metal skin.

The 1928 Ford Tri-Motor planes were workhorses in both private and public use.