Warbird Information Exchange

It is easy to loose site of the fact that Udvar-Hazy is NOT a museum!

It is a replacement for the long inadequate Silver Hill Annex. As such, It is (1) a storage facility and (2) a restoration facility. A great effort has been made to accommodate the public, which was not accommodated well at Silver Hill. We are all thankful for that! The NASM has many aircraft and has to store/protect them where space is available - and that may not be U-H. I'm just glad that these airframes ARE being protected - even if they are not displayed in a museum (educational) setting.

I've lost track of what other aircraft are still at Silver Hill. JFK's Convair, half a Betty, what else? They all need to be moved away from Silver Hill and U-H is the destination. So, before bringing airframes from other museums / storage, what remains at Silver Hill needs to be accommodated first.

Thank you to Mr. Udvar-Hazy and Ms. Engen for making this facility a reality. I hope some other benefactors step up so the U-H Annex and Engen restoration facility can expand to accommodate the entire collection.

C2j

can you still visit the Garber facility?

Doubtful that the average person can visit Garber today. But I'll never say never.

C2j

The Smithsonian calls it a "museum annex" and says "The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is a state-of-the-art facility for the display of air and space artifacts in the Smithsonian's collection." Sure seems like a museum to me. I went there last Friday, and in many ways it's a better museum than the downtown one, you can get far enough away from the airplanes to appreciate what they might've looked like in flight or at least out in their natural environment.



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http://www.biplanerides1.com/

They stopped giving tours at Garber many years ago. Still a whole bunch of planes stored there. I'm sure many of them will still be there 100 years from now

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Its the best non-museum I've been too....

Phil

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A man's got to know his limitations.

It's the most museum-like of the non-museums on my bucket list, at least.

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Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG".
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

"It's his plane, he spent the money to restore it, he can do with it what he wants. I will never understand what's hard to comprehend about this." - kalamazookid, 20/08/2013
"The more time you spend around warbirds the sooner you learn nothing, is simple." - JohnB, 24/02/22