July 19, 2013
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Summer DC Trip Number Two
My nephew, Christopher was up from Texas for a week. He's 16 and hadn't been up for a while. Since he shares my love of airplanes, we had decided that we'd save the Air and Space Museum for his visit, so on our last visit, we did the zoo and Natural History Museum on our last trip. Downtown DC is only a little more than fifty miles from our house, so we try to make several trips a year to see the sights. There's a nice parking garage just two blocks from the Air and Space Museum, so we were able to drive in to town, drive right to the garage and head over to the museum without the hour it normally takes to find a street side parking lot.
We gathered at the airliner cockpit to make our strategy. Each little kid had to be with a big kid or an adult, and there had to be a phone in each group.
Some of us went into the Wright Brother's shop.
They had an example of one of their bicycles. Bonus! I got to see bicycles and airplanes.
The famous Wright Flyer! The one that arguably started it all on a sand dune down in Kitty Hawk, NC.
Danny and Christopher liked the huge, radial engines and had me take their picture with this one.
If you're at all an aviation history buff, you'll remember the beautiful Lockheed Vega flown by Amelia Earhardt. I found out that Grace, Isabel and Samantha all love her story. Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
The girls wanted me to take this pic, but getting them to pose together was like herding cats, so I just snapped off a shot.
Sam and Rebekah met me under a drone, while we waited for Christopher and Danny to finish a simulator ride.
Tina and he kids had a blast in the "Principles of Flight" exhibit, with all the interactive displays.
Taking a break. Rebekah's a lot like her Daddy and Mama. She always has her nose in a book.
The Vin Fiz. Can you believe this airplane flew across the country from coast to coast?
Learning about the history of spying from aircraft.
The camera from the U-2 spyplane was quite a bit bigger than the ones we use, but was able to get very high resolution photos from super high altitudes.
Speaking of the U-2, that's one behind Sandra, Christopher and Isa.
Rocket planes to test how aircraft fly at super high speeds.
Air mail was a little different toward the beginning of the last century.
So much history in this place. Can you identify any of these iconic machines?
I was surprised that all of the kids really enjoyed this museum.
A Howard Hughes Air racer. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get a decent shot of this aircraft without the Staggerwing intruding up in the corner.
Speaking of the Staggerwing. This airplane, manufactured by Beechcraft, was a thing of beauty.
One of these days we'll make it out to the Smithsonian's hangar west of DC at Dulles airport where they house another, even larger collection of aircraft that aren't currently on exhibit at the museum in town. This collection includes the SR-71 spyplane and a Space Shuttle. We made it into and out of the city without hitting much traffic at all, then stopped at Ritas on the way home for a sweet and cold treat. Christopher's visit went by quickly, and I had to drop him at the airport this morning for his flight back to TX.
Comments (2)
I loved that museum! Was there in the early 80's on business -- we stayed at the Holiday Inn, and over the weekend did some touring. It took us all morning to walk through the A&S Museum to get to the mall bus that stops at all the monuments. It was fascinating that most of the items in the museum (except the Wright Brothers, of course) had occurred in my lifetime!
And a good time was had by all. That's great!