Wagner's Ring Cycle gets rebuilt ever decade or so in Seattle. In this case it was the last showing of this version of the Ring.

The Opera Association was given a chunk of money to build a better dragon, and it was decided to base the design on a large steam-shovel.

Believe it or not, no plans were ever drawn up for the dragon. The entire beast was built by taking measurements from a quarter scale model.

It is still the largest and silliest thing I have ever built.

When completed the entire 1800 lbs of aluminum, steel and wood traveled on 4 large air-casters. It breathed smoke, drooled liquid nitrogen, had spinning inner teeth, and belched fire.

After 10 shows at the opera house it was sent to Pacific Science Center at Seattle Center, where it performed 3 shows a day to demonstrate theatre special FX.

After 1 month of this ever single system on the dragon was broken beyond repair. The dragon was retired to the opera shop for 3 years before they chopped it up for parts.