On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:16:37 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:01:12 GMT, Steve wrote:

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:20:41 -0500, John H.
wrote:

And you can see one of those up close at the new Air and Space Museum!

I was just there. Here's a few pics of the SR-71 they have the

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sss_udv...81139456/show/

It's a tough place to photograph since it's kind of dark in a lot of
areas. If you're interested in seeing more pics from there, here they
a

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sss_udvar_hazy/show/

These pictures capture only a small percentage of what's there. It's
well worth the trip for any aviation buff.

If you are ever in New England, a must see if you are into aircraft is
the New England Air Museum in East Granby, CT at Bradley
International.

http://www.neam.org/exhibits/collections.asp

Some really interesting aircraft and engines there - mostly restored
and operational WWII aircraft.

The cool thing about Udvar-Hazy is that they have a lot of special
historic planes, not just your average WWII fighter. They have *the*
Enola Gay, *the* Gossamer Albatros (if you're into human powered
flight), *the* Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer (flew non-stop,
non-refueled around the world) . They have X-planes like the XV-15,
which was the tilt-rotor research plane that led to the V-22 Osprey.
Rare old planes from early days of flight like the Langley Aerodrome,
a Wright Model B, WWI planes, etc. Along with the numerous "average"
WWII planes, they have rarer ones like the German flying wing and WWII
jets, Japanese WWII planes, etc. Special, one-off racing planes. Even
Balloon gondolas that made history, like the first to cross the
Atlantic.

Then you go into the space part and see the Enterprise, Mercury and
Gemini capsules, Redstone rocket, etc. etc.

You would expect all that kind of rare stuff since it's the
Smithsonian afterall.

Steve

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:53:28 GMT, Steve wrote:

You would expect all that kind of rare stuff since it's the
Smithsonian afterall.

I was there in the early 90's. Amazing place.

The whole Smithsonian complex is something else - you could spend a
month in the place and never see it all.