Comments | canyonwalker: Visiting the Udvar-Hazy Center at the National Air and Space Musuem

canyonwalker

Visiting the Udvar-Hazy Center at the National Air and Space Musuem

Nov 27, 2021 19:54

Over the last umpteen years I've flown through Washington-Dulles Airport (IAD) more times than I can remember. Actually I don't have to remember; I have a flight tracking service I use. A quick query there indicates the number is 83. I have flown through IAD 83 times. Anyway, on a good many of those trips I have driven VA highway 28 south from the ( Read more... )

space: the final frontier, sightseeing, washington dc, virginia

Comments 2

some_other_dave November 28 2021, 05:56:55 UTC

I went right before the Covid lockdown hit. I had been meaning to go for years as well, and since I was not working at the time it seemed like a great time to go. I considered canceling the trip because of all of the stuff starting to happen, but figured I could take the risk.

I'm super glad I did! I described it as "the place where good airplane nuts go after they die". I stayed across the highway, and the hotel had a shuttle to the museum. I went there three or four days in the week I was in the area. I spent hours just staring at all of the aero engines they had lined up on the right side after you entered the main hall.

I also hit up the regular Air & Space museum in the Mall. A bunch of it was closed for renovation. The exhibits had been moved--out to the Udvar-Hazy!

I intend to go back in the future, but there are a whole lot of other air museums I can hit closer to home.

canyonwalker November 28 2021, 19:10:17 UTC

We had “only” 4.5 hours for our visit (we arrived at about 12:30 and stayed ‘til close for the day) but we could’ve stayed longer- given more time and more stamina for standing on poured concrete floors.

I looked at aircraft engines you mentioned. I only spent 20-30 minutes in that area because while I’m familiar with the engineering principles I’m not familiar enough with the fine details to appreciate which bits of technology advanced the state of the art at their time.

Also, there was a section of the hangar undergoing renovation. Aircraft there were draped with plastic sheets to protect them and those exhibits were closed. If everything was opened I definitely would’ve wanted more than the half day we allocated to it.