Larry A. Smail's Blog

Photo to show just how large this place is!

Laurie and I decided in February of going to Washington D.C. during the Cherry Blossom Festival. However, the visit of our south-eastern descent from Pennsylvania would begin at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, known as the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center. The web site is: https://airandspace.si.edu  This site is in Chantilly, Virginia.

Photo to show how large this place is.

We spent a few hours here looking at the various vintage planes of pre-World War 1 times to the Spacecraft Discovery. I am not an over-avid, airplane enthusiast by any means. However, I enjoy the history aspect of aircraft, especially of the second world war era. One very early aircraft was the Samuel P. Langley’s Aerodrome. If this fellow would have had succeeded in his first attempts to fly, he would have been the pioneer of airplane flight. However, he had two accidents just  days before the Wright Brothers succeeded in 1903. I am amazed as to how far airplane technology came in a little of a hundred years. Of course, seeing the famous B-29, known as the Enola Gay was a highlight for me. This plane is known for the dropping of the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945.                                                                                                                    

German Dornier DO 335

Other planes of history were the German and Japanese planes of the second war. Planes such as the German Dornier DO-335 were on display. Japanese fighters, too. I like the German planes’ construction! The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is available to view. This particular jet went from Los Angeles to Washington. D.C in a little over one hour at a speed of 2,124 MPH. I would say that is fast!                                                          The Air France Concorde is here, too!  This plane is capable of traveling two times the speed of sound! I remember of one crashing years ago in Europe.

Another view of the Enola Gay

Many, many airplanes can be studied on site. they cover personal planes of many kinds; the Cold War era; Korea and Vietnam and more.

Discovery

Other things of interest are aircraft restoration; the early space modules of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, rockets, missiles and satellites.

Note the height of the people

The Spacecraft, Discovery is huge! I stood in amazement looking at it. I would not want to be in this space vehicle. However,  this one flew 39 missions into the space. We spent some time in an observation tower watching planes come in to land at a local airport. The area was tuned in to their actual flight control patterns.