NASM Udvar-Hazy Center

Just got home from DC tonight, and figured Id pass along the 411 on
this place. Id imagine there already have been posts on it, but oh
well.
The UdvarHazy Center of the National Air & Space Museum opened on
Dec15 out at Dullus, bout a half hour drive from the city (not
including traffic). The place is basically a massive hanger, looks
great though. It has tons of airplanes organized by use
(military/civilian) and by era. Unlike the NASM on the Mall, this has
very little 'writing', it is a pure display of aircraft. Of course
each one has a little blurb to identify and give some background. By
far the coolest things are the SR71, the test space shuttle
Enterprise, Enola Gay, and the new JSF. They really had an incredible
collection though, well organized and spaced out, great setting. Free
admission, $12 parking, and to see an IMax is $8. I went to DC for the
whole weekend and did all the stuff on the Mall etc but this place
alone is worth a trip out there if you can make it, it really is
spectacular. The food situation there is pretty poor (premade
prepackaged Subway 'box lunches' are your only option) but thats not
what its all about I guess. I hope everyone gets a chance to see the
place!

Martin

The good news:

This is possibly the best collection of aircraft in the world. Everything from
Burt Rutan's original Vari-EZ (the one that flew with a VW engine until he put a
Continental in it) through a real Concorde to a real Space Shuttle. Pristine,
absolutely pristine displays.


The bad news:

Whoever designed the parking lot entrance ought to be shot.

The promo literature all says it is at the corner of two highways. It ain't.
The idiots that wrote the literature were all locals that KNEW the entrance was
two miles away from that corner. Try and find it. There is no signage.

The displays are on three levels. Try and get between the levels without a lot
of up, down, up, down climbing. Very poor ergonometrics...you'da thought that
this would have been the first order of the building design. It wasn't.

You'da thought that they would have staffed the entrance with people who spoke
at least rudimentary English. Either brush up on your Vietnamese / Cambodian /
Laotian or figure it out for yourself.


Jim


Jim Weir (A&P/IA, CFI, & other good alphabet soup)
VP Eng RST Pres. Cyberchapter EAA Tech. Counselor
http://www.rst-engr.com

"Jim Weir" wrote in message


The promo literature all says it is at the corner of two highways.
It ain't. The idiots that wrote the literature were all locals that
KNEW the entrance was two miles away from that corner. Try and find
it. There is no signage.

I'm not the author you'd like to see in front of the firing squad, but...

The Annex is indeed on the lot at the corner of two highways: US Rt50 and VA
Rt28. There are *lots* of signs on major highways in the area (VA267, I-66,
US50, etc.) explaining what exits to take and giving directions to the
entrance.

--
John T
http://tknowlogy.com/TknoFlyer
http://www.pocketgear.com/products_s...veloperid=4415
____________________

Yea, I used directions from the NASM website to get there, seemed to
be enough signs, maybe theyve been put up since Jim's visit. As far as
the people working there, yea the security guards doing the whole
metal detector routine at the front dont seem to be all that great
(they didnt ask you to take the metal out of your pockets, so it went
off for everyone going through, and they didnt bother to stop anyone,
except for bag checks), but there is a Welcome desk just beyond the
entrance that seemed to be staffed with capable people.
As far as the up and down stuff goes, yea that can be a pain, but
after spending the previous two days walking and walking and walking
around the city, I was used to it.

Martin

"John T" wrote in message ws.com...
"Jim Weir" wrote in message


The promo literature all says it is at the corner of two highways.
It ain't. The idiots that wrote the literature were all locals that
KNEW the entrance was two miles away from that corner. Try and find
it. There is no signage.

I'm not the author you'd like to see in front of the firing squad, but...

The Annex is indeed on the lot at the corner of two highways: US Rt50 and VA
Rt28. There are *lots* of signs on major highways in the area (VA267, I-66,
US50, etc.) explaining what exits to take and giving directions to the
entrance.

The entrance is not on the corner. The brochure is misleading. However, there
is plenty of signage.

I want to know how gate 4 suddenly became gate 317. Why not gate 9 3/4?

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m

I want to know how gate 4 suddenly became gate 317. Why not gate 9
3/4?

I wondered about that, myself. But then again, I've always wondered by the
post office sets up 5-digit house numbers on streets with 4 homes.

--
John T
http://tknowlogy.com/tknoFlyer
http://www.pocketgear.com/products_s...veloperid=4415
__________

They do that so you have a clue approximately where something is in
relation to others...

Ask a fireman, a medic, a policeman or a pizza boy what Im talking
about.. those 4 houses may be in the 125xx block of Numbnuts avenue..
but the 12500 block will tend to have the same or nearby cross streets
within neighborhoods (or even entire towns)... sometimes, by numbers you
can even tell how far from the corner the house is (and the corner may
be where the fire plug is..)..

Its not perfect, but it helps those of us who have to find you in a hurry..

John T wrote:

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m

I want to know how gate 4 suddenly became gate 317. Why not gate 9
3/4?


I wondered about that, myself. But then again, I've always wondered by the
post office sets up 5-digit house numbers on streets with 4 homes.

There may be now, Ron. There were 3 sets of calibrated eyeballs coming from
Baltimore on the Monday before Christmas. We came down the beltway, found the
east-west highway (50???) and then came to the junction of 50 and the highway
leading to Dulles. Not a scrap of paper in sight. We had no idea whether to
keep going on 50, turn up towards Dulles, down away, or whether we had already
passed it.

Perhaps it is better now. That day, as I said, was not much fun in the
navigator's chair. We took two wrong turns before we accidentally stumbled on
the right path.

Jim



"Ron Natalie"
shared these priceless pearls of wisdom:

-The entrance is not on the corner. The brochure is misleading. However,
there
-is plenty of signage.
Jim Weir (A&P/IA, CFI, & other good alphabet soup)
VP Eng RST Pres. Cyberchapter EAA Tech. Counselor
http://www.rst-engr.com

Just went there last Friday myself.

My first hint is to think about approaching the place from the south instead
of the north. We were southbound on VA Rt. 28, and there were cars backed
up for about 2 miles before the exit. Granted, this was on a Friday, with
schools still closed for the holidays, with good weather, and the place had
just opened a few weeks earlier. But if you hit a backup on southbound 28,
you may want to zip past the backup, turn around, and take the non-backed-up
exit off of northbound 28.

As far as signs go, I had zero problem finding the place without any prior
research. I got on the Dulles Greenway toll road where it begins in
Leesburg, and there was a sign for Udvar-Hazy within the first mile.

The parking situation just plain sucks. I don't mind paying the $12, but
they collect the money as each car is entering the parking lot. As a
result, there are huge backups just getting into the place. And the people
taking the $12 are spectacularly less than effecient. I had exact change
ready, and instantly handed over the cash once I was honored enough to get
up to the booth. It took (no lie) 2 full minutes to complete the
transaction, get a little piece of paper to put on dashboard, and open the
gate.

From there, we waiting in a quick line to get in the front door and through
security. They had given up all hope of screening people. You just walked
through the metal detector without taking your keys, cell phone, etc. out of
your pockets. Of course, the detector was beeping on everyone, so they just
looked in everyone's bags.

After clearing security, I had to go! It had been about a 45 minute wait in
traffic, and a 15 minute wait to get through security, and a 2-hour drive
from central PA before that, and all that coffee.. and I had my 3-year-old
with me. We went in and turned right to go down a hall. There are some
toilets there, but about 300 other people had the same idea. If you end up
in this situation, try turning left and going past the gift shop and where
the food court will eventually be. Or just go into the museum itself and
find a toilet there.

I have to agree on the ergonomics of the place. There are all kinds of
stairways and ramps to get onto the walkways. But some of the walkways
almost appear to be dead ends. They aren't really dead ends, but there were
people stumbling around who couldn't find the stairways. Additionally, if
you wanted to go from one walkway to another, you usually had to descend
down to the main floor, walk across, and then climb back up.

The collection in the place is nowhere near complete, especially in the
space area. They had all of two capsules and the Space Shuttle mock-up that
was used for glide testing, and that was about it. But then again, a good
deal of the place isn't ready yet. The food court is still being worked on,
so the food was being done on the main exhibit floor. Someday, I guess,
there won't be any room on the main exhibit floor for this kind of thing,
but right now there is.

The exhibits that are there are almost all simple static displays, with
barricades to prevent you from getting too close. Very little was
interactive in any way, and you couldn't walk through -- of even look
inside -- any of planes like you can in the downtown museum. The signage to
describe each exhibit was pretty weak. Each exhibit had a blurb that
wouldn't even fill your basic 3-by-5 inch index card, along with a small
number of statistics. I, for one, would have liked more information. The
way it is now, I couldn't see anything other than the outside of the planes,
and I couldn't learn much from reading about them. Instead, I turned into a
psudo-docent for my wife, kid, mother, and (often) those who stood around
us.

They do have free guided tours, which might have added something, but we
didn't try that option out for fear of long lines. The few interactive
things that were there, like the single simulator or the tower that lets you
look over IAD field, had lines of at least half an hour if not longer.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I went. But I also wish that I had waited
another 6 months or so, when the building will be more complete, more of the
collection will be installed, and the lines will be somewhat shorter.

"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote in message link.net...
Just went there last Friday myself.


You also have to realize they are not even finished with the construction yet
and they are running hard trying to fix up the glitches in things. Security was
a major issue that they've revised (the day after Christmas they got 53,000
visitors, things were a bit stressed). There are supposed to be maps up (you
can find the place where they go, but they are blank right now, except for some
laughable staffer who put a piece of tape on it that says "you are here."). The
hand railings on the ramps and stairs had sharp edges (they are busy grinding
these down now)...Margy herself and her coworkers were out washing the
floors under the artifacts (they can't drive the industrial floor washers under
the exhibits obviously).