All Stories

First of all there is a question of just what to call this device. Is it a “dummy”? That’s what its creators called it sometimes, but that sounds too pejorative and does not give credit to its complexity. Is it a “robot”? That’s what it looks like. Or is it an “android,” defined by the dictionary as “an automaton made to resemble a human being”?

Recently I was involved in a “first” in my career here at the National Air and Space Museum – a sleepover! About six winners (and their families) in the Post Cereal Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian contest spent the night in the National Mall building on Friday, August 7. The lucky slumber-partygoers had competed in an online sweepstakes that was promoted on Post cereal boxes.

Confession: I used to think airplanes were boring.

When you are visiting the Udvar-Hazy Center, you will come across a display case that holds the flightsuit of a former MiG pilot named Frank Jarecki. 

It was about twenty years ago, but no one in the Museum’s Archives Division can now remember who first asked us the immortal question - what‘s the wingspan of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning?

Most of us have a "junk drawer" that contains, among other oddments, stray keys.  Restoration specialists working on the Douglas World Cruiser "Chicago" recently found two such strays in the aircraft.

The docents at the Udvar-Hazy Center enjoyed meeting a special visitor on May 16, 2009. His name is Jim Henry, a WWII naval aviator. Henry was one of the pilots that flew the F4U-1D Corsair that is on display at the Center.

"You wrote a book about Tysons Corner? Isn't that a shopping mall?"

Early in the morning of July 25th, 1909 - a hundred years ago - Louis Blériot (1872-1936) crossed the English Channel, a distance of 22 statute miles (36.6 km) from Les Barraques (near Calais) to Dover.

This summer, the world is marking the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest milestones in aerospace history, and one of the most remarkable of all human achievements—the first Moon landing by Apollo 11.  But the summer of 2009 also marks another meaningful event in aerospace history.  It is the centennial of military aviation.