Udvar-Hagy

Believe it or not, this is the official name of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's new location near Dulles Airport. That is because Mr. Udvar-Hagy was the biggest donor to the project. It reminds me of Horton Watkins, whose wife donated the land for my public high school, which became officially known as Horton Watkins High School, and which is unofficially never known that way.

But I digress.

This new museum provides the Air and Space Museum space to display much of what does not fit into its Mall location, and will one day provide space for its restoration department (now in Silver Hill, MD, a place no one could possibly find).

Is it worth visiting? Yes, definitely, as much for the scale and design of the facility (the latter being a pleasant surprise), as well as for its contents.

Inside, there are a lot of little planes hanging from the ceilings, and more planes and space ships (as well as displayed engines, etc.)on the ground. Too much for me to absorb, although there are very detailed explanations provided.

There are, however, even for the air-challenged, some attention grabbers: the enormous original Space Shuttle Enterprise, a very shiny Pan American Clipper that used to belong to Papa Doc in Haiti, Air France's last Concorde, the original prototype for the Boeing 707, and a fascinating array of World War I and World War II vintage fighter and reconnaisance planes (not only US and British, there are also Japanese and German planes).

In addition, there is a McDonalds fast food outlet, a large gift shop with nothing I want, and an IMAX theater now showing both a movie about Mars exploration, and a movie about fighter pilot war games in the suburbs of Las Vegas. We saw the latter and (although it is a cheerleading film for potential fighter pilots)found it pretty interesting.

The museum is free (once you pay $12 to park the car), plus a charge for the movies.