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Ready for a Flight of Fancy? Visit Century's Worth of Flying Machines

Flight and aviation buffs have a new museum just for them. Fittingly, it takes a little traveling to get there.

So you've got a passion for aircraft, and those on display at the National Air and Space Museum don't satisfy your hunger. Then you might want to visit the museum's companion center in Chantilly, Va., as well. It is called the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and is located next to Dulles International Airport. It opened in 2003.

If the only time you've ever seen the space shuttle Enterprise is the brief shot of it in the "StarTrek" motion picture or television series, you can now visit it in person at the National Air and Space Museum's annex in Chantilly, Va. Credit: Dane Penland, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

The center includes two hangars—the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar and the Boeing Aviation Hangar. Hundreds of famous spacecraft, rockets, satellites, and space-related small artifacts are displayed in these hangars, as are landmark passenger planes from the DC-3 to the Concorde supersonic jet.

For instance, there is the space shuttle Enterprise, the first shuttle built for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, which was developed during the Cold War and is the fastest aircraft in the world propelled by air-breathing machines; the Boeing Dash 80, the prototype of the 707 passenger jet; the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, which during World War II dropped the first atomic bomb; the deHavilland Chipmunk, a two-seat, single-engine, primary trainer aircraft used by the Royal Canadian Air Force after World War II; the Gemini VII space capsule, which was flown in 1965; the Mobile Quarantine Unit used by returning Apollo 11 spacecraft crew in 1969; and a Redstone rocket, first launched in 1953 and used for the first live nuclear-missile tests by the United States.

Moreover, the center has a Wall of Honor, a memorial to the thousands of people who have contributed to America's aviation and space-exploration heritage; flight simulators; an IMAX theater; and an observation tower, where visitors can watch air traffic at nearby Dulles International Airport.

There is no direct Metrorail or Metrobus service from Washington, D.C,. to the Udvar-Hazy Center. But you can combine Metrorail and Metrobus to reach Dulles Airport, then transfer to a Virginia Regional Transit bus going directly to the facility. However, if you are flying in and out of Dulles for the annual meeting, it might be easier to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center upon arriving at or departing from Dulles. Then it would be only a short bus or taxi ride. More information is posted at <www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy>.

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