I had been wanting to see the Space Shuttle Discovery for quite some time. I only live about 3 hours from the Udvar-Hazy Center in Washington D.C. This past weekend I finally got the chance and it was glorious! If you don’t know, this was the shuttle that carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.
Is the SR-71 still in there? That thing is sick.
Yes it is! I got a pretty good shot of it too.
That’s an amazing airplane. I was able to go there a few years ago, and it was definitely worth it.
They also have one at the Evergreen aviation and space museum in Oregon, with it’s cockpit open and some internals on display. Such a cool aircraft.
I was able to visit that a couple years back. If you’re into aviation even the tiniest bit, I cannot recommend it enough. It’s SUPER cool. Very easy to spend a whole day there. They’ve got some fascinating and extremely historic airframes in there. One of those is the Enola Gay, which is the B-29 which dropped the first atomic weapon ever used in combat on Hiroshima. Definitely experienced some very complex and contradictory feelings while walking around that big bastard.
Yeah the B-29 is a beast! My Grandfather worked on them.
Found one from my visit:
Nice shot! I was just reading about how the pilot who dropped the bomb, named the plane after his mom. He just had some Airman paint it on right before the mission.
I was there right after they I installed it and they had that portside hatch open with poeple still working inside. You could sort of see inside it. Was cool The Concorde was very new there then too and stank of Jet-A.
Nice. Make it downtown to the museum on the mall?
Yeah I’ve been to all the ones on the mall several times. This was my first time at Hazy though.
awesome! That place is great, gotta go again sometime.
Here’s a few more photos from my visit.
Why is the US flag oriented in one direction on the wing and a different direction on the fuselage?
Flags painted on aircraft are always supposed to appear like they are blowing in the wind. So it’s backwards on one side. They usually paint it on the tail. It’s also sometimes worn that way on patches that military service members wear.
Thank you that makes sense
