David and I took a short vacation recently to Maryland; the occasion was a friend getting married, but we decided to make a long weekend of it to see some sights, rather than drive six hours each way just for the wedding.
The location was a peninsula near the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, which turns out to have been one of the US Navy’s flight test centers; shortly after, we learned that the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum has a facility out near Dulles airport, where they keep many, many historical aircraft and aerospace artifacts. This would be a great place to see a lot of aircraft without having to contend with D.C. traffic (much).
Oh boy, were there a lot of planes. The Patuxent facility was all military planes, mostly from the 1960s and onwards, most of which were outdoors. Highlights were an X-35 and, very rare, its competitor the X-32.
They also had a recently-added Blue Angels F/A-18 Hornet; the Smithsonian had one as well. And, they had a V-22 Osprey.
Most of the rest blurred into a series of varied aircraft with similar looks or names, many of which we were passingly familiar with, but have rarely been up close to. Inside the museum was a small exhibit devoted specifically to naval aviators who had gone on to space. The area in general was a Navy town, and the Patuxent NAS Museum clearly a navy place.
They had a separate building which had the “guts” of planes, as well as models of various aircraft carriers. Scopes, sonobuoys, electronic warfare computers, and incredibly, various engines cleaned and cut away to show how they worked. We watched some boy scouts rotate the business end of a turbo prop while we could see the gears whirring inside.
As it happened, one of the fathers along with the scouts had worked on that engine, and gave David a thorough explanation of that engine, and a Harrier V/STOL. Turned out he worked on the only civilian version currently in use, so I’ll guess he was the second-from the right on this photo.
The day after the wedding, we checked out of our hotel and went to Dulles. After a brief detour for extra caffeine, we arrived easily; really, if you like planes and are in the area, it’s an easy drive off the ring roads.
They have planes that are old.
Historic (the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb used in war).
Really, really cool. David had only recently shown me a video about the Shrike Commander.
Also hang gliders, sailplanes, and high-altitude parachuting.
My favorite part was the space wing. They have the Space Shuttle Discovery, as well as various 1960s capsules, rockets, and artifacts.
The most interesting to me was that at one point NASA considered a glided flight option to recover the Gemini capsule. An inflatable wing would allow it to paraglide to the ground. While it was flight-tested, ultimately NASA decided to stick with the drop-in-the-ocean method for recovering spacecraft.
Lastly, they had an SR-71 Blackbird. One of the fastest planes ever made, this was the demon beast of military planes I grew up with. It’s not a fighter; it just takes observations and flies very, very fast. This one flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. in 68 minutes.
Notable, you can view the restoration hanger, which has several projects going on at once. The red plane was one that Amelia Earhart used to set a record.
Altogether, between the two museums we saw a lot of aircraft. If you’re in the area, both are worth a visit; Patuxent was a neat find, and Smithsonian should already be on every aviation nerd’s list.
