Prologue: Air Zoo, Kalamazoo, MI
Circa 2003
Joe had just returned to Kalamazoo from Oz.
But it wasn't a dream. It was a place! And an SR-71, and the Enola Gay, and the space shuttle Enterprise, and the Boeing 707 prototype were there! But they couldn't have been, could they?
Since 1976, the NASM facility on the National Mall in Washington DC had showcased our nation's signature aeronautical artifacts: the 1903 Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Bell X-1, and Columbia, the Apollo 11 command module that returned our first lunar astronauts to Earth. However, there were many more treasures in the collection worthy of display than could be accommodated on the Mall. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center -- named in honor of its principal donor -- was opened in 2003 to make more of those artifacts accessible to the public.
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| Just a portion of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. |
Manifested as an enormous Quonset style hangar, the incredible size and scope of the Udvar-Hazy Center utterly astounded Joe. As he described his experience to a group of Air Zoo volunteers in 2003, Joe's deeply-felt "museum nerd" pride in becoming a Smithsonian insider was clear to all.
"Uhhd-ver Hay-zee?" asked one of the other volunteers, struggling to pronounce the unfamiliar name of the new Udvar-Hazy NASM facility.
"No, no," Joe corrected kindly. "Oood-vaar Hah-zee. Those in the know just call it 'Hah-zee'."
Twenty-two years later, I was lined up on final approach for runway 1C at Washington Dulles International Airport in Warrior 481 and spotted the Udvar-Hazy Center off my right wing. The sighting conjured an echo of Joe's words about "those in the know" and I grinned at the recollection.
Where Piston Pounders Fear to Tread
| Date | Aircraft | Route of Flight | Time (hrs) | Total (hrs) |
| 20 Sep 2025 | N21481 | SDC (Sodus, NY) - IAD (Dulles, VA) - AOO (Martinsburg, PA) - SDC | 6.6 | 3057.6 |
Each year, the Williamson Flying Club Activities Committee organizes a flying trip that includes a stretch goal, something that takes most of our pilots slightly out of their comfort zones. This often comes in the form of far flung destinations requiring overnight stays (e.g., the Outer Banks or Mackinac Island/Traverse City), traversing complex airspace (e.g., the New York Bravo or the Washington DC FRZ), or landing at a challenging or intimidating airport (e.g., the Alton Bay Ice Runway). For 2025, we identified the Udvar-Hazy Center as a worthy destination with the stretch goal aspect being a landing at a class Bravo airport: Washington Dulles International (KIAD). Despite all of my experience, I had never landed at a Bravo airport before.
For the non-pilot wondering why Bravos are a big deal, key words are "big" and "busy". Bravo airports are the largest and busiest airports in the country: Atlanta Hartsfield, Chicago O'Hare, Detroit Metro, and Newark Liberty all exemplify airports that anchor Bravo airspace. The airspace is larger, more restrictive, and complex. With airliner traffic density being much higher around these airports, controllers are challenged to work smaller slower aircraft like mine into the faster flows of "big ol' jet airliner" traffic. Too close an encounter between a Piper Cherokee and an invisible Airbus wake can be catastrophic for the lighter airplane.
But why not land at Dulles? "Hazy" (thanks Joe!) is located right there at Dulles. Based on all commentary I could find, Dulles is generally accommodating of piston general aviation traffic, in contrast to Bravo airports like Chicago O'Hare or Newark. Single engine piston fees at Atlantic-IAD tally to under $60, relatively inexpensive for a major airport. Despite the expected challenges of landing at a big, busy airport, going to Dulles was a no-brainer intellectually, even though the notion of it still evoked some dread from my private pilot lizard brain. The only fix for that unease was thorough flight planning.
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| ForeFlight depiction of the airspace around Dulles International (KIAD). |
First, there is airspace to manage around Dulles. To the north is P-40, the prohibited area around Camp David that expands when POTUS is on site. That was not the case on September 20. More critically, Dulles occupies the westernmost "ear" of the Washington DC "hidden Mickey" class Bravo airspace (shown in light blue). The airport is also within the Washington DC Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA, shaded red), which requires training on special procedures to access. At this point, Bravo and SFRA airspace were nothing new to me.
Ed (in his Cherokee Six) and I (in Warrior 481) opted to fly the route IFR, which essentially eliminated airspace as a factor. Matt (in the club's Bold Warrior) is not instrument rated and thus needed a SFRA flight plan on file to enter the SFRA in addition to requiring explicit "cleared into the Bravo" permission from Potomac Approach before entering the upside down wedding cake of airspace centered on Dulles. Fortunately, Matt is a thorough and conscientious pilot who was cognizant of satisfying these VFR requirements.
From an instrument flying perspective, I wondered about standard terminal arrival (STAR) or standard instrument departure (SID) procedures. There are several of each published for Dulles; however, all the directionally appropriate STARs and SIDs required either turbine aircraft or piston aircraft capable of 180+ knot airspeeds. That ruled out their applicability to a gaggle of Piper Cherokees. In fact, the only relevant procedure that I could find was the Capital One SID, a relatively toothless procedure that can be paraphrased as "climb to 3,000 feet and follow assigned radar vectors".
After reviewing multiple historical instrument clearances granted between the Rochester area and Dulles, I decided that I was unlikely to divine what ATC would want that morning and kept it simple: I filed KSDC to KIAD via MRB (Martinsburg, WV VOR at the northwest quadrant of the SFRA) at 8,000'. Ed largely did the same, but also inserted SEG (Selinsgrove, PA VOR) into his routing which put us on slightly different trajectories.
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Finally, ground operations concerned me simply because of the size and complexity of the Dulles facility compared to, say, Sodus. Because we planned to use the Atlantic-IAD FBO, we hoped to use runway 1/19C that is directly adjacent. I did not want to mix with airliners any more than I had to. Given the wind that day, we expected a northerly flow for landing at Dulles and planned (hoped) for runway 1C.
Buzz
Crack of dawn group departures from the Williamson Sodus Airport always buzz with purposeful energy. Our crews assembled at the fuel pumps: me with Tom in Warrior 481, Matt with Noah in Eight One Six, and Ed, Gilead, and Jonathan in Cherokee Nine One Four. For my part, I welcomed having a capable pilot in the right seat who could lend his eyes and ears to the flight. We were airborne just prior to 7:00 am.
Aloft and tracking toward Martinsburg, we observed an early autumn landscape still cloaked with overnight ground fog.
A pair of high contrails cast shadows through the atmospheric haze.
Over Pennsylvania, we skimmed low over cloud layers, but did not enter them. On our IFR clearance, Tom and I simply dragged Warrior 481's wheels through the clouds; VFR cloud clearance requirements were not a factor for us. Flying VFR in trail, Matt announced a cruise altitude change to remain VFR.
My First "Big Boy" Airport
Partway through Pennsylvania, Ed and I received the inevitable IFR reroute. It was the same for both of us: present position direct to HYPER, FDK (Frederick, MD VOR), AML (Armel VOR), direct. Ed and I turned to converge on HYPER intersection. Incidentally, this routing was not one of the historical IFR clearances that I found during flight planning. After some time, a very busy Harrisburg Approach controller temporarily turned me due east for sequencing behind Ed's faster southbound aircraft.
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| ForeFlight screenshot: turned direct MRB short of HYPER with Ed over Camp David. |
Prior to reaching HYPER, Potomac Approach sent Ed and I direct to Martinsburg and assigned an outbound heading of 210° after crossing MRB. Ed's flight path took him directly over Camp David and prohibited airspace P-40.
Soon enough, all three of us were on the same frequency again. By now, we had confirmed that Dulles was landing to the north with airline traffic primarily on 1R. Ed and I were told to expect runway 1L at the far western edge of the airport. Although I would have preferred 1C, 1L was satisfactory and while it meant a longer taxi to Atlantic, entanglements with airliner ground traffic would be minimal.
Matt took matters into his own hands and requested 1C from Potomac Approach. "I'll see what I can do," responded Potomac. "Hey, Four Eight One, are you going to want that too?" Sharp controller. I confirmed that I did.
With the three of us now more-or-less in trail, Potomac vectored us around the west side of the airport to join northbound arrivals for runway 1C. Matt called Potomac again and asked about opening his SFRA flight plan. "You should be good," responded the controller. It was not the most definitive affirmation, but with Potomac Approach owning the airspace, Matt decided that he was covered.
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| ForeFlight ground track showing approach to Dulles. |
Closer to Dulles, Ed's ForeFlight avatar appeared to line up with 1L instead of 1C. "Is he lined up on the wrong runway?" Tom asked. I agreed that it certainly looked that way.
"He wouldn't make that kind of error and it seems like they would have barked at him by now if he was lined up on the wrong runway," I answered hoping that I was correct. Later, Ed explained that his PA-32 was not fast enough sneak in ahead of an airliner cleared for 1C (the airliner that Tom and I landed behind), so Dulles Tower instructed Ed to sidestep to 1L. This change from Dulles Tower was issued while Tom and I were still on with Potomac Approach and we never heard it.
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| Final approach, runway 1C at Dulles. Photo by Tom. |
On final for runway 1C, Dulles seemed to be spread over a far wider area than I expected just by looking at the taxi diagram. There is a lot of open space between 1L and 1C.
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| Runway 1R, its double parallel taxiways, and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. |
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| Passing the Udvar-Hazy Center while flying parallel with an airliner inbound for 1R. Photo by Tom. |
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| About to cross runway 12/30 on final for 1C. |
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| Moments before touchdown on 1C at Dulles. Photo by Tom. |
It was a landing just like any other. No big deal.
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| ForeFlight ground track for landing on 1C and taxi to Atlantic-IAD. |
"Cherokee Four Eight One, exit to the right on high speed taxiway Yankee 6, then Yankee, Yankee 1 to Atlantic. Monitor ground 121.62." I had never used a high speed taxiway before, but let's face it, I never go fast enough to actually need one.
That'll Learn Ya
At this point, a learning opportunity arose for me. I have rarely been told to "monitor ground" in the past and, when it has happened, I was never 100% clear on whether that meant "stay with tower, listen to ground too, but don't check in with them" (the same way I "monitor" Guard while en route) or "switch from tower to ground, but don't check in". I chose to do the former and that was the wrong choice. When Ground directed me to give way to a Phenom jet emerging from the FBO ramp, Tower broadcast simultaneously on the other frequency and I was not clear which controller made the directive. I worked through it in the moment, but awkwardly. I read more on this topic later and confirmed that "monitor" means "switch without checking in." All three of us had minor hiccups at Dulles that day, this was mine.
In the end, landing at Dulles was functionally a non-event and not nearly so challenging as the last pancake breakfast I flew into.
High End Hitchhiking for Six
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| Ed's Cherokee Six and Warrior 481 parked on the Atlantic ramp. |
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| A United airliner taxied past from the United maintenance facility located just north of Atlantic-IAD. |
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| Can y'all arrange yourselves in a "U" shape? Perfect. |
Using Warrior 481 as a convenient tripod, I captured an obligatory ramp photo of the WFC at Dulles. From left to right are Ed, Matt, Jonathan, Gilead, Noah, Tom, and me.
When checking in with Atlantic, I was surprised to already exist in their system, but later remembered that we borrowed a courtesy car from Atlantic-BAF to visit Mount Holyoke College in 2024. Once everyone was checked in, an Atlantic staffer offered to shuttle us the 5.6 miles south to the Udvar-Hazy Center. Unfortunately, the van only seated six and there were seven of us.
"Maybe the skinny guy can sit between the seats," offered the driver with a European accent that I could not quite place. He was pointing at me. The scrawny teenager I once was would have bristled at that, but after what I've been through this year, I was flattered that he noticed. Piloting has its perks though, and as one of the pilots who flew to IAD, I was allowed an actual seat and someone else took up station in the space between the two bucket seats of the van's second row.
Our first goal of the day, just getting there, was met! My first Bravo landing was less of a big deal than I expected. The rest of our day was ahead of us and, in short order, we arrived at the final destination: the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
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