Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

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<National Air and Space Museum

The Interior of the Udvar-Hazy Center

The Enterprise in the space wing of Udvar-Hazy

The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM)'s annex at Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia. As the NASM continued to collect aircraft, it long ago outgrew its primary facility in crowded downtown Washington, D.C. This center is a perfect companion facility to the National Air and Space Museum.

Opened in December 2003, the Udvar-Hazy Center displays historic aviation and space artifacts, particularly items too large for the National Air and Space Museum's building on the National Mall, including:

• the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan
• the Space Shuttle Enterprise
• the Gemini VII capsule
• an SR-71 Blackbird
• an Air France Concorde supersonic jetliner
• the Boeing 367-80 jet transport, which was the prototype for the Boeing 707
• the Langley Aerodrome A, an attempt at powered flight by Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley
• the Northrop N-1
• the only surviving Dornier Do 335 Arrow
• the only surviving Heinkle He 219 Owl
• the only surviving Arado Ar 234 "Blitz"
• one of two surviving Bachem Ba 349 Natter's
• the only surviving Nakajima J1N1 Gekko
• one of four surviving Northrop P-61 Black Widows
• one of two surviving Boeing P-26 Peashooters
• a Bede BD-5, a single-seat, homebuilt aircraft that was somewhat popular in the 1970s

Aerial photo of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

The Center was made possible by a US$65 million gift in October 1999 to the Smithsonian Institution by Steven F. Udvar-Hazy, an immigrant from Hungary and co-founder of the International Lease Finance Corporation (Small, 2003). It contains an IMAX theater. Construction of the Center required fifteen years of preparation (Triplett, 2003).

The museum is in the process of installing exhibits, but more than 120 aircraft and 140 space-exploration exhibits are already on display, and plans call for eventually installing over 200 aircraft.

See also

• Aviation
• Space exploration

External links

• [Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center site]
• [Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center Photo Gallery]
• [Aerial view on google maps of partially completed building]

Photo Gallery

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