The Grouch Heads East! - Part Two - the Air and Space museum annex aka Udvar-Hazy center

Day Two saw us traveling to the Air and Space museum annex at Dulles IAP.  This is the overflow for the main museum and in some ways even better than the 'big' museum as it is less crowded and it is easier to get close to the aircraft.  Plus there are some real 'stars' located at this facility  Here is the official website:  http://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center/

For this trip I invested in an up to date Tom-Tom GPS and let me say it was one of the better $100 I've spent recently.  Never wrong and easy to follow!

The family were good sports about spending as much time as we did at the museum.  Older son joined us there after a couple hours and I enjoyed walking with him to view the planes.

The gang getting their photo taken before the ordeal - I mean the visit!

Younger daughter looking lovely

Ok - here we go!

So many of my favorite aircraft are to be found here - this is the P-26 Peashotoer.  Advanced when introduced in the mid 30s but hopelessly obsolete by Pearl Harbor.

The P-40; Claire Chennault showed the Japanese in China that they were about to be in big trouble - his Flying Tigers racked up a number of victories in an earlier version of this plane.   Heavy, built like a tank, and able to take amazing punishment and still could fight on.

Looking one direction from the elevated walkway

Two technological marvels of the 20th century: the SR71 and the Space Shuttle

The plane that ended world war II

Jet combat aircraft, some actual combat veterans

The Concorde, the Boeing Stratoliner, and the Boeing 707: all three on the leading edge of aviation technology

The alien spacecraft model used in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"   A close encounter with the model (it is huge) reveals many interesting things such as a mailbox, a WW2 fighter plane on a catapult and...

R2D2!

A Mercury space capsule - 'a man in a can'.  No room to move in there! 

The Discovery - it is huge!

According to Younger daughter who knows things - when the Discovery was overhauled and damaged tiles replaced, the black tiles by the cockpit glass were added as 'tears' for the lost shuttles.

You can even view the aircraft overhaul work area!  Not much was going on when we were there.