The Air And Space Annex

Officially it's the Steve F. Udvar-Hazy Center, located at the end of one of the runways at Dulles Airport in suburban Virginia.  Operated by the Smithsonian, it is the annex of the Air and Space Museum on the Washington Mall and, for my money, it is a superior visitor experience. 

I made my first visit last week.  Entering the huge hanger facility I saw a thrilling vista.  I felt like a ten-year old.

A huge display of military and commercial aircraft from the early 20th century as well as missiles and space craft from the NASA program, including the Space Shuttle Discovery, an SR-71 Blackbird, the Enola Gay, a Concorde, and a slew of other flying objects.

When you first walk in:

That's a Corsair, a Navy fighter from WW2 and Korea.

 

Below is a P-38 (that's the Enola Gay behind), one of the three top Army Air Corps fighters of WW2, along with the P-51 and P-47.  It's also the plane that my father-in-law loved above all.  He went to Southern California from Nebraska just before the war to become an aircraft mechanic and worked on the Allison V-1710 engine that powered the P-38.  Later he enlisted and became a naval aviator.  A few years before he passed I located an original 1942 maintenance manual for the engine, the same one he used, and gave it to him. 

And here's the Allison engine!

Space Shuttle Discovery.  Flew 39 missions, more than any other shuttle.

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.  Flew at 85,000 feet and more than 2,000 mph.  Utilizing stealth technology, it was a fragile frame attached to two giant engines.  That's a P-40 above it in the foreground.

The Enola Gay.  The B-29.  It cost more to develop than the A-bomb it carried.

This is Flak-Bait, a B-26 bomber under renovation in the museum's Restoration Hanger.  Flak-Bait was preserved by the Air Force after WW2 because it flew more combat missions, 207, than any other American aircraft during the war.  Used in the European Theater, the plane was hit more than 1,000 times by bullets and flak yet survived.