The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

I have never been to this expansion facility to the Air and Space museum yet; the outrageous parking fees (12 bones!!) hav ing kept me away before now.

Some other holiday plans having fallen through, we bundled up the children and headed over there during the holidays.

On this map, these pictures represent ONLY those aircraft in the Northern Section of the hangar.



There's so much to see here, I'm breaking this up into two sections, as people complain about posts with a gazillion pictures in them.

So without further ado, highlights from:

Cold War, Korea, Vietnam and Modern Era fighters

My children in front of the formidable SR71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane.



The museum actually has one of Curtis "Cold War" LeMay's trademark cigars.



This is the Bell UH1 Iroquois, popularized in Vietnam and many 'Nam war movies.



I was taking notes like a madman, but missed this. I *think* it is a Soviet SA-7 GTA missile.



Going 'round the corner, I pause to snap a picture of the new Joint Strike Fighter.



This is the Grumman A-6 Intruder, now out of service inventory.



This is the Lockheed Shooting Star, one of our first jets. Shooting Star pilots were in for a rude awakening when it went up against the MiG-15!



Speaking of which, here's one now. Matched againsit is the North American counterpart:


The North American F-86 Saber, a strong match for the MiG-15.



And here's a MiG-21 Fishbed



OUR version of the V-1 Buzz Bomb, built by OUR kidnapped German Rocket Scientists.



A shot of some aircraft gunnery



I was quite taken with the MiG-15 and F-86 being so close to one another, so I shot them again from another angle:



They're like a matched set!!

We'll close out with a little American Army GTA missile, the Little John:



Next Intallment: World War 2 and Interwar.

NOTE: Mark Onomarchos also has visited Udvar-Hazy, and had these pics to share on his SMUG MUG blog.