A Day Out at the "Airplane Museum"

We went to Udvar-Hazy on Saturday with Granny, Granddaddy and the kids.  If you don't know what Udvar-Hazy is, it is the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum annex that is out by Dulles airport.  Its where they keep all the big stuff that won't fit in the building on the National Mall that most folks see and think they've seen the Air and Space Museum.  Its basically two huge hangars in a "T" shape, with an Imax theater and a 620' tall observation tower that over looks the airport thrown in.  Note:  I'm going to mix some pictures from Saturday's visit with some I made earlier, so if you see Flat Kimmy, don't worry, she's safe at home in Alabama. 

The kids had a blast, especially Joseph.  One of the first things they saw was the "Tiger Plane" (their words).  Then Joseph ran down the ramp, as slow as we could get him to go, to the SR-71 that is the centerpiece of the front hanger, or the top of the "T", where all of the terrestrial aviation is.

The "Tiger Plane"

SR-71 up close and personal.

 

Discovery over the shoulder.

The view no Soviet pilot ever saw.

 The museum has a little Cessna 150 inside that they let the kids climb in and handle the controls.  Its educational for older kids because they can work the controls and watch the ailerons, etc., but for Janelle and Joseph, it's just fun.

They got out of the Cessna and Joseph ran off toward "the yellow airplane".  You might notice that he looks pouty in the picture.  That's because we stopped him from climbing over the seat and getting to the plane.  He was a little disappointed that he couldn't touch everything.

If you've never been there, you should put it on your list of places to go the next time you're in DC.  They have a treasure trove of aircraft from the very beginning of modern aviation to today, and cat walks around the hangers that provide a multitude of views.

A Concorde.

In the entry vestibule.

Note the rear facing machinegun.  How would you like to fly that into combat?  Especially since they forbade parachutes back then, since a parachute would only encourage the pilot to abandon his aircraft.

 A Piper Cub, over the wing of a Boeing 707, with the Concorde on the rear left.

If the planes aren't enough, you can always go up in the observation tower and watch the traffic into and out of Dulles airport.

Wide angle view of Dulles.

Can you find our van?  The kids did.

There are two displays which I consider the crown jewels of the museum.  The first is THE Enola Gay, the B29 that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II.

This is hard to see, but this is where the Army Airman sat and the bomb sight he used when he pickled the two atomic bombs that ended WW II.

The second crown jewel is the recently added Space Shuttle Discovery.  It is really something to see and I think it is pure genius to display it like it is.  It is not "restored" at all.  It looks just like it did the last time it returned from space.  The previous owner of this display space was the Space Shuttle Enterprise.  I really don't know if the Enterprise was  real or a model.  I'm still confused about that, but the difference is striking.  The Enterprise was a museum piece, the Discovery looks like a bird of war.  Here's a few contrasting pictures:

Enterprise

Discovery

 Here's a few more of the Discovery and her battle scars.

The heat tiles underneath.

It's really sad to know that this wonderful craft probably marks the end of manned spaceflight in our generation.  The other displays at Udvar-Hazy that show the beginning of the space race, when we put men on the moon with vacuum tube technology and no more computing power than a modern pocket calculator makes one wonder why it is too hard to send men to space in 2012.  I guess its a matter of will and leadership.

Our visit ended like any other good day at Udvay-Hazy, with a meal at the highest priced McDonalds in Virginia, but the only one where you can watch airplanes on the base leg to the runway at Dulles.

Finally, just because I couldn't resist this shot (all in good inter service fun), my tribute to the US Air Force.  For the record, the Enola Gay was a US Army Air Corps aircraft.  The Air Force didn't exist until 1954.