AWESOME!
This past weekend, while in Virginia visiting with my son, FlyBoy Kyle O’Neill, he treated my wife and me to a brief visit to the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum – Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. And AWESOME is the only word that I can use to describe this place! Anyone who has any interest in aviation, aerospace, and/or history needs to put this destination on their bucket list!
The three of us were only able to spend two hours touring the facility and all that served to do was to wet my appetite for another future visit. If you visit this museum, plan to spend an entire day there. You will need every minute of it to see and enjoy everything there is to see throughout the museum.
I took almost 200 photos during our brief tour of the museum and there is no way that I can display them all here on FlyBoyz. However, I have taken a representative sampling of them and am displaying them, along with captions, in this blog post in hopes of conveying even a bit of what there is to see at this museum. The photos are displayed in both a ‘Gallery’ format (above) for quickly scanning thru them and also in a captioned ‘Light box’ format (below) which allows for zooming in on individual pictures by clicking on them.
Main entrance and control tower at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center located at Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia.
A personal favorite, a P-40 Warhawk, is on prominent display near the entrance to the main hanger.
The museum has displays representing all periods in aviation, from pre-Wright Brothers flight attempts to current aerospace technological wonders. Here is the Langley Aerodrome A which challenged the Wright Brothers for the first powered heavier than air flight.
There were multiple levels of displays and no matter where you looked all you saw were planes!
There are truly historic aircraft on display throughout the facility.
The Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hanger is a $30 million hanger devoted to the meticulous restoration and preservation of historic aerospace wonders.
This PBY Catalina is undergoing preservation and is the sole survivor of one of the airfields attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. Every plane in this restoration hanger has a story!
Up close and personal with one of my all-time favorites…the P47 Thunderbolt!
Foreign aircraft, such as this Focke Wolf 190, are well represented throughout the museum.
The SR 71 – it is Huge!!
My son Kyle was particularly impressed by the SR-71…enough to get his photo taken standing alongside it!
Everything from light personal aircraft to the Concorde SST are on display.
The Concorde SST…beautiful shape!
What can I say…Space Shuttle Discovery on display in all her glory!
Space Shuttle Discovery!
My son and I were blown away by how big the Space Shuttle is…we had no idea! At 6′ 5″, my son could easily stand upright in each of these main rocket nozzles.
Virtually every aspect of the the space program is represented including this Apollo Lunar capsule.
A Marine Corps CH-46 is currently on loan from the Marine Corps Museum. I spent a lot of time working on these birds, a personal favorite of mine, during my time in the Marines.
The entire facility is beautiful, including the exterior art work.
A special thanks to my son, Kyle, for taking the time to share this special place with us.
If you are ever in the Washington, D.C. area, I would encourage you to make a point of visiting this excellent aviation museum…you will NOT regret it! Click here for full information on visiting the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum – Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: Smithsonian Institution: Udvar-Hazy Center
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