Into the Flight Restricted Zone | Part 2, Air & Space

No More Nasty Orange Carpet!

After a ten minute walk from College Park Airport, I was waiting on the Metro platform for a southbound train going toward Branch Avenue. Accelerating smoothly, the train eventually went underground where my ears experienced the familiar feeling of increased pressure as the speeding train compressed air in the tunnel ahead of it.

L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station.

I have been riding the DC Metro somewhat regularly over the last 20 years. Though it is less true recently, my work used to take me to DC often for meetings and conferences. I have always liked the system. It is clean, efficient, and effective. One improvement in recent years is that the nasty orange carpet that I remember from 2000s era trains seems to be gone. It is not missed.

Pardon Our Dust

The main entrance off the National Mall is currently under renovation.

The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum (NASM) on the National Mall is receiving a much needed refreshing. Currently, half of the building is closed while the facility is renovated and the exhibits modernized. Sadly, this means that some of my favorite parts of the collection are unavailable for viewing including World War II aircraft, the Spirit of St Louis, and the Hughes H-1 Racer (a gorgeously sleek work of aeronautical art). Because of reduced capacity, the museum uses a timed entry program. Tickets are still free, but must be reserved in advance. I obtained an 11:00 am entry ticket a couple of days beforehand and managed to get into line at exactly 11:00 am. My timing for the entire morning was driven by that entry time. Even when dealing with new procedures, I do better than the airlines!

Sculpture outside the Air & Space Museum.

South side of the Air & Space Museum, Independence Ave entrance.

Within a few minutes of 11:00 am, the line began advancing quickly and I entered the museum through the south side Independence Ave entrance.

I will not attempt a comprehensive survey of the NASM, but highlights are included below grouped by exhibit.

The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age

One of the restructured exhibits is dedicated to the Wright Brothers. It was a perfect complement to my trip to First Flight Airport earlier this year. The exhibit does a great job of contextualizing the Wrights’ contributions to the study of aerodynamics and controllable, powered flight versus the efforts of their predecessors and contemporaries. I thoroughly enjoyed the reimagined exhibit.

At its core stands the restored 1903 Flyer that made history on December 17, 1903. It is easy to think that the artifact on display must be a replica due to its pristine cloth skin. However, the Flyer was last restored in the 1980s with great pains taken to mimic the sort of muslin used by the Wrights as well as the manner of stitching that they would have used to attach it. But the wooden bones enclosed within those fragile cloth skins are the same that took flight on that blustery 1903 day outside of Kitty Hawk, NC. The figure of Orville Wright lying awkwardly prone at the controls of the Flyer is, however, a replica.

We All Fly

A new gallery for the NASM is the Thomas W. Haas We All Fly exhibit aimed at highlighting and celebrating General Aviation. I am genuinely pleased by the idea of this exhibit because the general public seems generally oblivious to the existence and role of General Aviation. I take some issue with the choice of exhibiting a Cirrus SR-22 as a paragon of personal GA aircraft rather than the obvious and beloved Piper Warrior, but I might be biased.

Sean D. Tucker's Challenger III aerobatic aircraft.

It was exciting to see Jerrie Mock's Cessna 180 Spirit of Columbus featured. In 1964, Mock was the first woman to fly solo around the world in this airplane as described in her memoir, Three Eight Charlie.

Significantly less mainstream than the Cessna 180 is this Airphibian. The first roadable airplane to be certified by the Civil Aviation Administration (forerunner to the FAA) in 1950 was invented by Robert Fulton, Jr. Featuring a detachable prop and empennage/wing assembly, the Airphibian could interconvert between car and airplane. It suffered from the same challenges as other roadable aircraft designs: it was neither a very good car nor a very good airplane. But it is an interesting curiosity.

Early Flight

 

A rotary aviation engine on display.

The Early Flight exhibit features the wood-framed, gossamer skinned contraptions that exploded into existence after the Wright Brothers demonstrated the viability of controlled, powered flight. 

Although the usual suspects were there -- a Lilienthal glider, a Curtiss Pusher, and a Bleriot XI -- what caught my eye was this 1909 Wright Military Flyer. Undeniably descended from the 1903 Flyer, the 1909 Wright Military flyer was an evolution of the design meant to satisfy a military bid for a two seat surveillance aircraft. (Emphasis on “seats”, no more tummy time for pilots!) The Wright Brothers won the bid and sold the Military Flyer to the US government for $30,000 in 1909. This was the first military aircraft ever and was once based at the College Park Airport, a facility specifically established for training military pilots under the tutelage of Wilbur Wright.

Unlike the pristine 1903 Flyer, the skin of the 1909 Military Flyer is still stained with soot, a mark of credible authenticity.

America by Air

Occupying the western atrium of the NASM, the America by Air exhibit celebrates commercial air travel and features this beautiful, gleaming Eastern Airlines DC-3.

In this frame, we see the Northrup 4A Alpha (far right), a 1930 design that took great pains to keep the passenger complement of six comfortably inside the fuselage while the pilot still sat outside in an old school open cockpit. (Brrrr!) Below and to the left is the Boeing 247, an early (circa 1933) airliner with an all-metal skin. And of course, there is the aforementioned DC-3.

The exhibit also features a Ford Trimotor 5-AT that entered service in 1928. Reputedly, it made for an incredibly noisy ride, generating 120 dB of noise on take-off. For context, this amount of noise is between the 110 dB characteristic of front rows at rock concerts and 130 dB generally accepted as the threshold of pain. But at least the pilots got to sit inside with the passengers.

Cockpit of a DC-7. Without a transponder, this aircraft would have been barred from today's Washington DC airspace.

Flights of Fantasy

NASM has everything! Even a T-70 X-Wing fighter flown by Poe Dameron in a galaxy far, far away. (The recovery costs alone must have been astronomical!) 

Obviously, most of the artifacts at the museum are genuine articles rather than movie props, though the conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landing was staged might think otherwise. Speaking of the moon landing...

Destination Moon

As a child, I would have made a beeline for the Destination Moon exhibit. Born of the Star Wars generation just two years after the Eagle brought Armstrong and Aldrin to the lunar surface, my whole childhood was fixated on space; space movies, space books, space toys. Even toys that weren't space toys were repurposed into space toys. Fascination with all things space was my gateway into aviation.

NASM's Destination Moon is beautifully done. It features a comprehensive accounting of the road to the moon, including the challenges, setbacks, and actual artifacts that made it all possible.

Mercury capsule, Freedom 7.

Mercury capsule, Freedom 7.

Is sympathetic claustrophobia a thing? Because I think I experienced it as I peered into Alan Shepard's Freedom 7. Shepard was the the second human being and first American to fly into space inside this tin can, perched atop a Redstone rocket like an arrowhead. 

Gemini VII.

Gemini VII.

Gemini VII launched on December 4, 1965 with astronauts Frank Broman and Jim Lovell (who later commanded Apollo XIII) aboard. Their mission was to demonstrate that humans could survive 14 days in weightlessness, a feat not previously accomplished. They also executed the first docking maneuver in orbit with Gemini VI piloted by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, demonstrating a critical operation necessary to accomplish the moon landing.

Also on display were the tiny string of bells and miniature harmonica that Stafford and Schirra smuggled aboard Gemini VI to play Jingle Bells to Mission Control from orbit on December 16. Spaceflight is serious business, but I admire the dedication and spirit required to pull off such a gag. 

Apollo XI capsule.

Apollo XI capsule.

And finally, there was Columbia, the Apollo XI capsule that returned Neal Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to Earth after humanity first set foot on the moon. I cannot view these artifacts with anything but awe for the astronauts who willingly bound themselves into these nutshells to become kings of infinite space. (To paraphrase Shakespeare.)

Neal Armstrong's spacesuit from the moon. Dry clean only?

The Rocketdyne F-1 is the most powerful, single rocket engine ever flown. Five of these massive engines lifted the Saturn V rocket carrying humanity to the moon.

Overall, I was very impressed with the reimagined exhibits. They present these precious artifacts to visitors in a modern, accessible way all wrapped in a bow of dazzling multimedia. I look forward to the eventual completion of the remaining exhibits. Fortunately, with a FRZ PIN now in hand, Washington DC is a quick flight and Metro ride from home.

Return to College Park

Washington Monument.

United States Capitol.

After three hours, I left the National Air & Space Museum and wandered northward to the National Mall where I could regard the Washington Monument that I saw earlier through the windscreen of Warrior 481 and where I could shake my head at that other structure bookending the east end of the Mall.

With that, I strolled to L'Enfant Plaza for a return Metro ride to College Park.