The Real Stuff

Washington DC (see the picture)
N 38 52.736 W 077 01.507

We split up today. Ray and I went to the new Smithsonian Air and Space Museum; the one out by Dulles Airport. Libby and Pat went to the Women's Art Museum and the National Gallery. That way none of us were bored looking at things that only the others would be interested in.

We have been to the Air and Space Museum on The National Mall before, and frankly, that was a disappointment for an aviation buff. Not so the new museum.

Not only did we get to see such unique icons as a SR71 Blackbird and a Junkers JU 52, but I was stunned to see three aircraft of incomparable fame. We saw the Enola Gay (the real thing!) We saw the Gossamer Albatross (the real thing!) We saw the Global Flyer (the real thing!) Never in my life did I expect to see these things with my own eyes. Anyone who is an aviation buff and also a history buff, such as myself, could not help being stunned by these sights.

Ray and I spent the whole day there and we didn't leave until I had exhausted both batteries for my digital camera. It was a great day. Even getting there was easy. We walked two blocks from the marina to catch a bus to Dulles Airport. At the airport we caught a second bus to the museum. It was simple, fast and inexpensive, only $7.20 for all the bus fares. The museum, like all Smithsonian Museums, is free.

The planes are so lovely. The restorations are amazing. The planes glisten and gleam like diamonds, better I'm sure than they looked new from the factory. The SR71 Blackbird is so much bigger than I imagined it to be. Other than the Apollo 11 LEM (part of which is still well preserved on the surface of the moon), the Enola Gay, the Magna Carta, and Sophia Loren (who is still well preserved on the surface of Earth, see the 1977 Pirelli Calendar for proof) must be the most significant historical artifacts that I can imagine. In one week, I've seen two of the four. I'm humbled.


Above left-to-right top-to-bottom

• The Mariner Space Probe (obviously, not the real one)
  
• The Enola Gay
• I pose below the Enola Gay's nose
• The Boeing Stratoliner
• The Boeing Stratoliner's nose. It gleams and sparkles.
• The Gossamer Albatross
  
• Lockheed Constellation, military version. I flew on the Eastern Airlines version of this plane as a boy. It had a picture window and a piano and a piano bar in the tail. We landed on the grass of Idewild Airfield (today called JFK).
• Half of the Global Flyer. She was too big for me to get all of her in a picture. Steve Fawcett flew this plane solo, non-stop, around the world.
• The SR71 Blackbird. She was too big to photograph properly indoors.