How do you say “Heaven” in Hungarian?

The last time I was in Washington was in 1998 when I dove headfirst into the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the Mall. I spent almost an entire day at that museum and I loved every minute of it. I mean, where else can you see the Apollo 11 capsule, the Wright flier, the Spirit of St Louis, and an X-15 in the same room?

The Udvar-Hazy Center, the ‘other’ building holding the Smithsonian’s Air and Space collection, did not exist back then. I’ve always wanted to see this museum but Washington is not exactly nearby. Well, sometimes the stars align in just the right way. In this case, there was a much-needed professional conference in Washington with a limited amount of free time between ‘pencils down’ and ‘airplane boarding’ on the last day.

And limited it was – I had three hours to see the museum. Three hours is definitely not enough time. I had to fly through the various sections of the museum. Normally I’d be reading everything about every airplane. Normally I’d be taking in all of the artifacts on display. Normally I’d be getting every angle of every plane.

But I just didn’t have the time. So, I can’t give a full rundown of every plane I encountered. And I can’t write a great deal about each of them. But I will detail a few of the planes that really made an impression on me.

The Lightning

Most airplanes in museums are restored and repainted. While this practice makes the planes pretty to look at and protects them from corrosion, it also removes authenticity. I’d say that most of the airplanes at Udver-Hazy have been meticulously restored and each of them look like a million dollars.

But for me, this Lightning looked the best, all beat up as it is.

This particular P-38 never flew in the Pacific Theatre (at least I don’t think it did) but I can look at this plane and easily picture what those Guadalcanal P-38s, P-39s, and P-40s might have looked like. It is scratched, chipped, faded and worn. It looks like it still flies regularly. I hope they don’t ever so much as wipe it down. It just looks great. This is exactly how warbirds should be preserved for the ages. What a great museum piece.

The Discovery

This was definitely a highlight for me. The last time I saw a shuttle it was the Enterprise. It was strapped on the back of a 747 and it stopped briefly in my hometown when I was 9 years old. I am positive I saw it at the airport but I also have a memory of seeing it fly on the back of that monster airplane. Maybe I stuck around with my dad to watch it take off.

(I’d know for sure but Dad processed all his film onto slides at the time. And man, I could write a few paragraphs about that horrific media storage decision!)

Anyway, I must have been a little shuttle crazy back then because my sister bought me a Monogram Shuttle and this book for my birthday (that I read cover to cover) so I was pretty well-versed on how to fly this thing.

Fast forward some forty years and here I was staring at the Discovery. Talk about commanding a room. They have it parked front and center in the ‘Space Hangar’. I don’t know how to explain my first impression but it is both massive and small at the same time. I loved the fact this shuttle has not been cleaned or repainted. It looks like it has just completed its rollout at the Kennedy Space Center at the end of a mission.

There was just so much to look at as I walked down both sides. I love that it has so many textures and materials making up its structure. The surfaces are dirty and the tiles are all charred and chalky. One of my wish list models for 2024 was a new mold and authentic-looking Shuttle in 1/72 or smaller. Seeing the Discovery only made me want this more.

The only unfortunate thing was that I couldn’t get a good look at the engines as there was an event at the museum and they had blocked off that section of the hangar. But that does give me a great excuse to go back someday!

The Huey

I’ll level with you, I am going through a bit of a Vietnam air war thing right now. And the Huey is just one of those iconic airplanes that, as soon as you see it, it just makes you think of the Vietnam conflict. I think I have seen a half dozen Hueys in museums over the years but they were all clean and fresh looking. This one looks like its been used and maybe cleaned up a little. I am not sure whether this one was restored but if it was, then someone knew how to at least make it look in service in South East Asia.

It is also the stretched version of the Huey that just looks ‘right’ to someone who grew up on Vietnam movies, documentaries and books.

The Enola Gay

It is not often you stare in the face of world-changing history. But here I was looking at the bomber that, for all intents and purposes, completely changed everything about the world. To be honest, it was that thought that made me put down the camera, find a seat, and just take it in for a long while. I have read a lot about the end of the Pacific War and the series of decisions that led to the flight of the Enola Gay on that August morning in 1945.

But it is something different to see it up close.

Being a B-29, the plane is massive and the museum elevated it so it can be seen and studied on multiple levels. I’ve read there has been considerable controversy related to the display of this airplane. I certainly did not see any part of the display as disrespectful to anyone or with any cringe modern-day revisionism. I think the museum chose the path of simply displaying it and providing the context for its creation and use.

Last Thing

Seeing this collection was a bucket list item for me and I can’t recommend Udvar-Hazy enough. I hope you have more time than I had but even if you only have three hours, you’ll come away satisfied.

I only discussed the highlights of my visit but there are so many other favs to see: The Corsair and the Blackbird come to mind. There is also an entire section of civil and general aviation airplanes that has a freakin Concorde. How many times am I going to run into one of those? And I barely got to take those in. I also would have gone to the control tower, tried out a simulator and watched one of the IMAX shows.

Damn… now I have to go back.