{"id":38796756,"date":"2004-12-12T03:36:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-12T03:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.casey.com\/2004\/12\/visit-udvar-haz.html"},"modified":"2013-04-05T04:51:11","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T04:51:11","slug":"200412visit-udvar-haz-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/2004\/12\/12\/200412visit-udvar-haz-html\/","title":{"rendered":"Visit Udvar-Hazy, Really"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If someone encouraged you to visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center<\/a>, it would be understandable if your reaction was uncertain. Is that like Betty Ford? Is this an intervention? What is this place? Well, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy<\/a> is a very wealthy guy who wrote a vey large check to the Smithsonian Institution in order to build a location at which the Air & Space Museum could put on display the very many large and wonderful items that are way to large to be displayed at the Air & Space Museum on the mall<\/a>. The Udvar-Hazy Center, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary today, is well worth the visit. And Mr. Udvar-Hazy deserves to have his name on it for having helped bring it all about.<\/p>\n

The place is enormous. Just imagine a hanger that holds a Space Shuttle, a Concord, the Enola Gay, an SR-71, and dozens of other air and spacecraft, many of which are hung high above your head, yet doesn’t feel crowded. And it doesn’t, the place is that big.<\/p>\n

After wandering among the planes for a long time, we caught a chance to rest our feet and a great IMAX film, The Magic of Flight. It was a terrific overview of the story of flight that focused on early attempts and the historic success of The Wright Brothers<\/a>, and the members of the Navy’s Blue Angels<\/a>. A new IMAX movie,Fighter Pilot, opens today, and according to this review in the Washington Post, may rate a return visit<\/a>. Despite the kids whining, we skipped the flight simulators, a decision re-inforced by the above Post review which described them in a word, “Lame”. If you want to ride a simulator, ride the ones that the Air & Space Museum on the mall has to offer.<\/p>\n

So later in the evening on the day of our visit to Udvar-Hazy, I asked my pilot father<\/a> the question, of all the planes we saw today, which would you most like to fly?<\/p>\n

To fly, as in take a ride on, or to pilot?, he replied.<\/p>\n

OK, Mr. precision… both…<\/p>\n

The answers:<\/p>\n

To take a ride on<\/strong>, any of the WWII era planes, particularly the Corsair<\/a>. That makes sense, as a Navy pilot, dad would be interested in an earlier generation of the Navy’s carrier based fighter airplane.<\/p>\n

To pilot<\/strong>, the SR-71 Blackbird<\/a>. Another good choice. As a test pilot, dad would love some time in the high-speed, high-altitude spy plane. The last flight of the one on display at Udvar-Hazy arrived here after a record-setting flight from, Los Angeles to Washington, DC, in 1 hour, 4 minutes, 20 seconds. That’s an average speed of 2,124 mph. Yes, good choice on that one.<\/p>\n

And a follow-up question. Which one would you not get into no matter how big a check Steven Udvar-Hazy was willing to write you?<\/p>\n

Answer… any of the hang-gliders, like the Sportswings Valkyrie<\/a> (why no photo? dang). No engine, no guns, only gravity, wind, and a kite to dangle from. Dad’s been plenty daring in his career in the air, but he’s not stupid.<\/p>\n

It was a great day, a great place to visit, and great fun. My rating is two thumbs, way up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If someone encouraged you to visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, it would be understandable if your reaction was uncertain. Is that like Betty Ford? Is this an intervention? What is this place? Well, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy is a very wealthy guy w…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38796756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-museums","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mOvc-2CMO8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38796756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38796756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38796756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173354046,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38796756\/revisions\/173354046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38796756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38796756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38796756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}