May 17th, 2021 … Summer of Fun continues!

Today, we drove to Chantilly, Virginia to visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport. It is the companion facility to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. It opened in 2003. The two locations together attract more than 8 million visits per year, making the National Air and Space complex the most popular museum in the United States. Hundreds of historically significant air- and spacecraft, along with thousands of small artifacts, are on display in an open, hangar-like setting.

The aircraft and spacecraft hanging overhead are impressive enough, but the Udvar-Hazy Center also offers thousands of additional artifacts to view. For aviation enthusiasts young and old, the Udvar-Hazy Center is just plain cool. The hanger styled building holds more than 290 air and space artifacts. The expansive museum consists of two hangars—the Boeing Aviation Hangar and the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar—which house dozens of aircraft and spacecraft. Some of the most notable include the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, a Concorde and the space shuttle Discovery.

We explored the Military Aviation area and found this amphibious seaplane. The Sikorsky JRS-1 is the only aircraft in the Museum that was at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Ten JRS-1s were at the US Naval Base when the Japanese attacked during World War II. The Navy immediately sent these unarmed utility craft to search for the enemy fleet. The JRS-1 (used 1937-1944) is the military version of the Sikorsky S-43 "Baby Clipper." On the day of the attack, the plane wore a very colorful paint job: silver overall, black on the bottom, green tail surfaces, a red band around the rear of the fuselage, and the diamond-shaped squadron insignia behind the cockpit on each side. A few days after the attack, ground crew repainted the plane blue, but it has weathered and the original paint is peeking through. The JRS-1’s current condition is due to many years of storage outside. The Museum intends to conserve and restore the plane.

We also found a Blue Angel plane and learned it made its own final flight into the museum. On November 18, 2020, Cmdr. Frank “Walleye” Weisser, USN, a member of the Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration team, flew into Dulles International Airport to deliver a McDonnell Douglas F-18 Hornet to the center. The airplane arrived and is displayed in Blue Angels livery, but its history goes back further than just its time with the Blue Angels. This airplane was built in 1987, the 11th model C Hornet off the production line, and bearing Navy Bureau Number 163439. It was part of the Navy Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 86, the “Sidewinders” and flew over Lebanon in 1989, protecting the withdrawal of personnel from the American Embassy in Beirut. In 1991, it participated in Operation DESERT STORM, pushing Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army out of Kuwait. In 1993, the Navy transferred it to VFA-83, the “Rampagers” and again flew over Iraq, helping to enforce the southern “no-fly” zone. By 2007, it had passed through three more squadrons before delivery to the “Knighthawks.”. Deployed to the USS Enterprise, the airplane once more flew over Iraq as well as Afghanistan as part of the Global War on Terror. Transferred once more in 2008 to the “Blue Diamonds,”it continued flying in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, this time from the deck of USS John C. Stennis. After a final stint in a training squadron, “Flying Eagles,” from 2011, the Blue Angels took possession of in 2015.

Around the corner from the F-18 we found an F-4 that Charlie worked on while he was in the Marine Corps. To make this plane more special, it bears the squadron identification that Charlie was assigned to. The US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps and the Air Forces of 12 other nations have flown the multi-role Phantom II. In this aircraft, then a Navy F-4J, on June 21, 1972, Cmdr. S. C. Flynn and his radar intercept officer, Lt. W. H. John, spotted three enemy MiG fighters off the coast of Vietnam and shot down one MiG-21 with a Sidewinder air-to-air missile. This Phantom also flew combat air patrols and bombing missions during the Linebacker II bombing campaign that same year. Later assigned to the Marine Corps, this F-4J was extensively modernized and designated an F-4S. The Museum's F-4S-44-McDonnell Douglas Phantom II, 157307, was accepted by the Navy on December 18, 1970. By June 22, 1971, it was assigned to Fighting Squadron 31 stationed at the Naval Air Station, Oceana, Virginia. Early in 1972, VF-31, went aboard USS Saratoga, and by April en route to the western Pacific for duty in the Vietnam War. On May 18, 1972, the squadron started combat operations on Yankee Station, off the coast of Vietnam. 

While on a flight on June 21, 1972, its last day on station, F-4 made its mark. It was launched that day on a MiG Combat Air Patrol with VF-31's Executive Officer, Cdr. S.C. Flynn, USN, as pilot, and Lt. W.H. John as the Radar Intercept Officer. This was not their regularly assigned airplane. They spotted 3 MiGs and in the ensuing engagement shot down one MiG-21 with a Sidewinder missile (AIM-9). This action marked a first for the Saratoga Air Wing and for an East Coast fighter squadron. VF-31 completed its deployment to Southeast Asia early in 1973, and returned to its home port at NAS, Oceana, Virginia. The Phantom remained assigned to VF-31 until September 12, 1975, when it was transferred to VF-33. After a series of deployments aboard USS Independence, it was assigned to VF-74. It left VF-74 for VF-103, then to VF-171. On April 8, 1983, F-4J was taken into the Naval Air Rework Facility for conversion from a J model to an S model. The S conversion was an extensive modernization and service life extension overhaul for 250 F-4Js. When conversion was completed on December 27, 1983, F-4S joined Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron, stationed at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Yuma, Arizona (Charlie's unit). It remained there until November 28, 1988, it left the Marines for the National Air and Space Museum, at which time it had amassed a total of 5,075 hours flight time with 6,804 landings (1,337 were arrested), and 1,163 catapult shots off the deck of a carrier. On November 29, 1988, this Phantom arrived at Dulles International Airport.

On the Sport Aviation side, we found many unique planes, but the 1912 Gage biplane is referred to as the Fowler-Gage, in recognition of its owner and pilot, Robert G. Fowler. Beginning in October 1912, Fowler made numerous exhibition and passenger flights in California. He made his most famous flight in the airplane in 1913, flying ocean-to-ocean across Panama. With the Gage now on floats, Fowler started his Isthmus of Panama crossing with a takeoff from the Pacific side on April 27. It was an extraordinarily dangerous flight, with no open areas available for emergency landings. Nevertheless, he completed the 52 mile flight in one hour and 45 minutes, landing with his passenger/cameraman, R.E. Duhem, at Cristobal. Fowler continued to perform further exhibition and passenger-carrying flights, as well as flying linemen on inspection trips over the transmission lines between Sacramento and Oraville, California, for the Great Western Power Company. He retired the airplane in 1915.

The cutest plane we saw on the Sport Aviation side was the Stits SA-2A Sky Baby. On a dare from another pilot, Ray Stits designed and built the Sky Baby at his home in Riverside, California, to prove that he could build the world's smallest man-carrying airplane. To keep the overall dimensions of the SA-2A as small as possible, Stits chose a biplane layout with negative-stagger, full-cantilever wings, and a conventional, cruciform empennage. I am not even sure a man could sit in there!

Restoration and preservation of our collection is conducted in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar. The facility is spacious enough to accommodate several aircraft at one time, giving our restoration specialists the room and equipment required to reconstruct, repair, and preserve artifacts. The Restoration Hangar also houses numerous support shops where Museum staff complete the many highly specialized functions necessary to preserve the collection. From a glassed-in mezzanine, you can view restoration projects in progress. The "Flak-Bait" is in the center bay on the Restoration Hangar.

Orbiter, Space Shuttle, OV-103, Discovery is on display in the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar Space. The Discovery entered service in 1984 as the third orbiter in the space shuttle fleet. Columbia and Challenger had already flown a total of 11 missions as America’s “space truck.” Discovery’s first mission, STS-41D, followed suit as the crew deployed, for the first time, three communications satellites, but it also signaled how the shuttle could serve as more than a delivery vehicle. Discovery’s first mission began with drama—three launch delays, the first on-pad engine shutdown (just four seconds before liftoff), a related fire on the launch pad, and rollback from the pad for a major payload shuffle—but after launch it progressed well. Both the crew portrait and mission patch depicted the orbiter with an odd feature that looked like a tower rising from the payload bay. 

It was a ten-story, 13-feet wide, lightweight solar array, accordion-pleated for compact stowage – at that time the largest structure ever deployed in space. From the aft flight deck, the crew extended and retracted the array several times to observe its operation and stability. This new technology experiment used the shuttle as a test bed for evaluating large structures needed for a future space station. Discovery checked out well in space. However, one surprise drew attention: an icicle about two feet long and a foot in diameter, composed of wastewater and urine, jutted out from a dump port just beyond the crew hatch, where it threatened to damage the open payload bay door. The crew rotated the orbiter to expose that side to direct sunlight and reduce the ice mass, then tapped it gently with the robotic arm to break it loose. The successful STS-41D mission confirmed the shuttle’s versatility as a delivery vehicle, technology test bed, and research environment. More than 20 of Discovery’s 39 missions also involved deliveries, but this orbiter began its career serving multiple purposes at once.

The namesake of the facility is Steven Udvar-Hazy, who immigrated to New York from Hungary as a child. After immigrating to the U.S., Udvar-Hazy packed boxes in a Manhattan warehouse for 30 cents an hour when he was 14 years old. The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum named it for him after a $60 million donation in 2000. He is credited with creating the airplane leasing industry. He started his own airline in his 20s, but realized there was easier money to be made in buying planes and leasing them to airlines. Udvar-Hazy's first airplane leasing firm, International Lease Finance Corp., was sold to AIG in 1990 for $1.3 billion. He started his second airplane leasing company, Air Lease Corp., in 2010 and took it public a year later. He remains Executive Chairman of the Board. He is very proud of the center because of the opportunity it gives children to see the history of aviation. If he can have children have that same feeling that he had when he was a six-year-old at the airshow in a communist country that to him is worthwhile.

Other features of the Center include the Donald D. Engen Observation Tower and the Airbus IMAX Theater. Unfortunately, both of those features were closed due to COVID.

It was another great day on the #EastCoastPatriotTour

#YankeeRVtours

Stay tuned for more #TwoLaneAdventures