New Air and Space Museum
August 5, 2004
(Written October 3)
Dear Families and Friends,
In the course of our hectic summer, Marianne and I were on the way between an office visit in Southern Virginia and wedding preparations up in Maryland when we passed Washington's Dulles Airport for the umpteenth time. However, this time we chose to be tourists for at least a couple hours.
Just south of the airport proper is the Udvar-Hazy Center (pronounced "oodvar haazy" according our in-house Hungarian expert), which houses a fascinating collection of historic aircraft. Down on the Washington Mall, the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum is the most popular tourist attraction around but, for years, many of the biggest and best of the institute's collection has not had a year-around display home. Mr. Udvar-Hazy donated $80 million to change that and the huge Center is the result.
There are dozen's of aircraft, and one prototype spacecraft, inside cavernous display halls. This is too vast an area to really summarize, and I promise I won't show you pictures of each and every display. Mostly, I was struck by the historical nature of most display items; individual planes that been part of aeronautic history, not just good examples of one machine or another.
Here are a few:
This was the Lufthansa plane we flew over on. Just kidding. It is one of 4,832 Junkers Ju52 built after it was introduced in 1932. The 17-passenger plane was the backbone of the German airline for a decade. (A couple days ago, I saw one still flying over Frankfurt.) |
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| The Boeing 307 Stratoliner offered it's 33 passengers the benefit of cabin pressurization for the first time. While there were only 10 built, the story is that it was so advanced an aircraft and that Howard Hughs wanted it bad enough that he bought TWA in order to get the one of the airline's allocated Stratoliner. |  |
| This Grumman Goose was a different sort of airliner. It was one of the last of the air-boats in commercial service. In the late 60's, I had a flight one one that was still being used to fly into Petersburg and other small towns in Alaska. |  |
| The B-29 with the large "R" on its tail is the Superfortress Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb almost exactly 59 years before our museum visit. Seeing this plane gave me an eerie feeling. |  |
| Most of the planes on display came from peaceful careers, including this Boeing 367-80, the "Dash 80". Only a few were built in 1954 but they served as the prototypes for the Boeing 707, one of the most successful commercial aircraft in history. |  |
| My favorite plane is the SR71A Blackbird. The plane was designed by a small team isolated in Palmdale, California. From its first flights in 1967 until the end of the Cold War the Blackbird had a remarkable history of flying too high and too fast to be intercepted by other planes or missiles. This particular plane reached its last hanger by flying from Los Angeles to Washington DC in 64 minutes, 20 seconds - a record that will stand for a very long time. |
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| The Concorde was not quite as fast as the SR71A but its history was much more public - and romantic. Seeing this plane crosswise in the hall shows just how big the Udvar-Hazy Center buildings are! |  |
| In a wing by itself, sits the Enterprise, the first Space Shuttle to "fly", albeit only after being dropped from the back of a 747. This part of the museum is not yet completely open but, even from a distance, the Shuttle is a strikingly large craft. |  |
| The newest fighter on display was this Lockheed Martin X-35B Joint Strike Fighter. |  |
So, the next time you go to Washington, take some time and visit the "oodvar haazy", its worth it.
Regards,
John and Marianne.
