Day 14: Gaithersburg, MD and Dulles

Day 14, June 13th, Gaithersburgh, MD. I spent today with Jim and Jeanette Pierson. Jim had a wonderful idea: head for the National Air & Space Museum center located on site at Dulles International Airport. This is the Udvar-Hazy center, not the museum located in DC. Here, just about every model of aircraft could be found, either at ground level or hung from the ceiling. The best part was that most things seen here were the real article. Some of the highlights included the Space Shuttle Enterprise, an SR-71 Blackbird, the Enola Gay, and a Boeing 707! Jeanette related her disappointment concerning some of the mock-ups on the Space Shuttle. It is indeed the real Enterprise, a shuttle that was used only to test gliding characteristics; it never made it into space. It looks like they stripped many items and the museum had to mock-up some features, but it's hard to tell from a distance. All of these airplanes, space capsules, and missiles are housed in a huge hangar at Dulles, complete with air traffic control tower. The tower was apparently the old Dulles tower, and the views of the approach from here are amazing. We watched a British Airways (Speedbird) on final. We skipped the Air Traffic Control exhibit, which is also located in the tower.

I kept commenting that this was the type of museum that you could not get enough of, one that didn't make you fall asleep. It also featured a wide variety of satellites, including an amateur radio satellite, OSCAR-1. I was amazed by the range of satellite sizes, some enormous, and some that could fit in the palm of your hand (microsats). Also on display where missiles and rockets of every size and from every era. You could see the evolution of the spacesuit through the years, and they even had a child-sized spacesuit on display. It was fully functional, except it did not have the internal pressure bladder. This suit was on a life-sized doll that was given to dignitaries in the 60's and 70's.

We retired back Jim's house in Olney, MD where I promptly took a nap. I guess there's no shaking that worn-out museum feeling. Afterwards, a feast was prepared on the grill, followed by a driving rain and thunderstorm which rolled through, completely soaking the lawn furniture cushions. Also, somebody forget to turn the grill off, so we evaporated a few rain drops overnight. Jim and Jeanette didn't enjoy the nap I did earlier, so they were off to bed by 11pm. I stayed up until about 1am working on blog entries and photographs. The next day would be an exciting one, a flight into one of the busiest DC area airports, Baltimore-Washington International (BWI). I would also be joined by a friend who was flying in from Albany, Matt Cusack.