Aircraft museum spreads wings

Some of the world’s best-known aircraft are headed for the National Air and Space Museum’s cavernous annex, opening Dec. 15 just south of Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Va.

Among them are the space shuttle Enterprise, used for NASA test flights from 1977 to 1979; the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, which the museum says is the fastest, highest-flying operational jet-powered aircraft ever built; a newly restored Enola Gay, the B-29 that in 1945 dropped the first atomic bomb used in combat, on Hiroshima, Japan; and the Concorde, the supersonic jetliner recently retired from commercial service.

The $311-million annex is 28 miles from the Washington, D.C., site of the Smithsonian museum, which claims to be the world’s most popular, with more than 10 million visitors a year. The original museum has room to display only 10% of its vast collection. The annex, with a hangar the length of three football fields, will eventually display 80% of the holdings.

The annex’s opening is not without controversy, much of it focused on the Enola Gay, whose front fuselage and other components were last shown in 1998 and which is now reassembled, nose to tail. A coalition of historians and authors has petitioned the Smithsonian to include discussion of the ethics of nuclear war on the U.S. bomber’s display label, which focuses on the plane’s technical capabilities. In a statement Nov. 7, museum officials responded that the labeling is in line with practices in the rest of the museum and “does not glorify or vilify the role this aircraft played in history.”

The annex, named the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center after the businessman who donated $65 million to help build it, will be open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily except Christmas. Entrance will be free, but parking will cost $12 per day. Shuttle bus service between the museum’s National Mall building and the annex will cost $7 per person. (202) 357-2700, www.nasm.si.edu.