photos of the Udvar-Hazy Center of NASM

[Steve Nelson]

I can handle a massive museum like this. Three trips to the USAF Museum in Dayton in the last 7 years has broke me in. It's that you have to do TWO of them (UH & the Mall) at once that is sensory overload. Plus, all the monuments and memorials. I'd need at least a week.

Tru dat! I spent a day at U-H last year, and two and a half days wandering around downtown DC, and still didn't see half the stuff I wanted to. Fortunately the NMUSAF is fairly "close" (only about a four hour drive!) so I get there once or twice a year. Heck, I managed four visits within nine months over the past year!

Great pics! I really need to get a DSLR with a nice wide-angle lens.

SN

Last edited by Steve Nelson on Wed Dec 02, 2009 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Pogo]

<shakes head and turns off computer to find normal people>

Hey, that's cheating! Get back here!!

[Ztex]

Great set of pictures! I will get to see that place one of theses days! or else....

Only one problem with that set though....where's the XV-15? I saw one rotor blade in one pic...

[N3Njeff]

I wonder why they put a brodie system on the first production L-5. I dont think it ever had one on it. Jim?

Taylor, did you get a answer???? I thought the same thing when I had seen the pic. I dont remember ever seeing L-5's with it, just L-4's

[armyjunk2]

Zane, Did I miss one? I just went back and looked its in the Condorde photograph, I did miss it I'd better go back.......

[Taylor Stevenson]

L-5s were used with brodies just as much as L-4s, but the NASM is usually VERY accurate with their aircraft and I don't believe the first production L-5 (which is the one hanging in the museum) ever had a brodie on it... just being picky.

[JBoyle]

Now that the Swoose is finally being restored*, I don't have much to nit-pick the NASM for.

* My long time gripe was their puzzling preference for restoring obscure (and limited operation use) axis types (Do-335, Ar 234, Japanese sub-based plane) being restored before having a B-17 on display. Now I'm not saying those types aren't worth having, restoring or displaying...just the seemingly odd priorities of the NASM restoration line.
It would have been nice to have a B-17 displayed at THE national museum when more of the people who built and flew it were still with us...IMHO.

I could still name a few American aircraft they really should have on display.
B-24...the Lockheed Orion (I don't think the Swiss will sell it back), Hamilton Metalplane (being sold next month), Boeing 40 (Chicago's) and other early single engine airliners...plus a complete DC-7, an airliner configured Connie & 707...several helicopters (Bell 47D/G, etc.) and other non-military types.

[warbird1]

FANTASTIC PHOTOGRAPHY! Thanks so much. It certainly is getting filled up with airplanes.

As for the 3 P-61s in storage? Yeah right. There are only 4 known in the world.

well I have seen IN PERSON or in photograph 5, and that doesn't include the one to three (depending on who you talk to) in china and I have heard of at least one in europe although I haven't actually seen it
don't start fights you believe your philosophy on museum planes and ill believe mine! ok? OK!

Care to add any more details about this, or is it classified? Regarding the one in Europe, was that in reference to the one that was mentioned on this board by a certain poster a few years ago - the one supposedly in England or a different one?

I've heard of the Chinese ones as well, with my closest source being second hand information, but I've never seen any proof of their existence.

[JDK]

well I have seen IN PERSON or in photograph 5, and that doesn't include the one to three (depending on who you talk to) in china and I have heard of at least one in europe although I haven't actually seen it

The current Warbird Directory gives four current extant examples*. I have never heard anything reliable about one 'in Europe' and would be interested in seeing a photograph or a firsthand account of it, like bdk's investigations and photographs of the Chinese example. It is possible that there are others in China - a lot more likely that an undocumented example in Europe, but again, evidence would be welcome.

Which five have you seen / seen photographs of, please?

*MAAM, NASM, NMUSAF and Bejing. It also lists five that were on the civil register that are no longer extant. Obviously other examples or parts that were never civilian owned may survive, which would not be on that list.

Regards,