Smithsonian opens hangar doors to pilots
More than 55 aircraft displayed at Udvar-Hazy Center
They taxied to the adjacent Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center’s Innovations in Flight Day to display the airplanes for all to see.
More than 55 single- and twin-engines, passenger, and military models, plus a handful of helicopters, were parked on the ramp outside a hangar that houses the space shuttle Discovery, a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, and other significant aircraft from World War II, Vietnam, the Cold War, and the Space Age.
Pilots from Alabama to Wisconsin flew a variety of aircraft to the event with clearance to land at the 11,500-foot-long Runway 1R after first navigating the Special Flight Rules Area in and around Washington, D.C.
Air traffic controllers deftly worked the smaller aircraft in ahead of, behind, or safely spaced away from commercial airliners landing at one of the airfield’s three parallel or one crosswind runways on a crystal-blue-sky Saturday morning.
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