Visiting Apollo 11 (March 5, 2017)

Drove today to the Steven Udvar-Hazy Center, the "annex" to the National Air and Space Museum. The main museum is in downtown Washington, DC, this is located in Chantilly, VA. Amazing collection there, and this is my third visit to the museum which is one of my favorite places in Virginia. All sorts of planes there, such as this WWI aircraft. German in this case, and was typical of planes of that era. Wood, wire can canvas. No parachutes for the pilots either. It was a very tough way to fly and to fight and the toll in that war was high on planes and pilots. Another one of the planes in the WW2 collection, again this is a German aircraft. There are many though from all eras of flying including some rare Japanese aircraft, some British and some amazing American aircraft.

Big reason for this trip was to see Apollo 11 which is getting cleaned up for an upcoming four city tour during the next couple of years. This is the Command Module from the first crew to land on, and walk on the moon.
The very vast majority of aircraft and space craft are the planes and spaceships that made history. There are all sorts of things to see, as well as rockets, and personal items from many of the pilots and the era. I always have enjoyed my visits and certainly am looking forward to the next one.

Seen here is a later day WWII Navy plane, and an F-100 from the early Vietnam era. The museum is open most days and admission is free though parking is $15. The museum is located near Dulles Airport, which came in handy when the Space Shuttle Discovery landed on the back of its 747 carrier aircraft a few years ago. I have posted photos of that amazing spacecraft in previous posts on visits to this museum.