Dulles Airport, March 2025
First time I visited Washington, D.C. was in 2019, when I was still flying in the widebody fleet. That time I took the opportunity to visit the National Air and Space Museum.
Since I returned to the narrow-body fleet I've been to Washington many other times and revisited the city museum once again in 2023. But what I really wanted to do was to go the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at the Dulles Airport which is a long way from our layover site.
Last month I found the perfect opportunity and company among my colleagues to finally see the other location of the museum.
The best and most economical way to go to the museum from Washington is get the Metro Silver Line (direction Ashburn) to the Innovation Center and from there take the bus 983.
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General View
The museum is of free entrance and it does not need a time slot reservation contrary to what happens in the city location (also free).
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Boeing 367-80
The flap track fairings offer better aerodynamics not only by covering the flaps extension mechanism but also by mitigating the wing longitudinal flow that gives origin to the wingtip vortices, hence the large canoe-shaped structures we see today in modern commercial aircraft.
This was the same aircraft on which pilot "Tex" Johnston did a barrel roll, infuriating Boeing's president William Allen to whom he said he "was selling airplanes".
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Lockheed SR-71
Well, then we have the fastest aircraft in the world with its titanium structure.
OV-103
And a couple of close-ups with details of the Shuttle, including the tiles which were essential during the reentry phase and caused the failure of Columbia in 2003.
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Pegasus XL
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Concorde
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Boeing B-29
The Enola Gay bomber is another historic aircraft in this museum, that casts a shadow over humanity of one of the most terrible fears we feel to this date since the deployment of the first two atomic bombs in Japan.
Lockheed L-1049