Air and Space, Dulles. Page 3:
"Nothing has changed us so much as flight. It has shrunk the world while opening it to commerce, industry, science, diplomacy. It is hard to think of any human effort untouched by the miracle revealed by the Wright Brothers in 1903. Unleashed, it ran rampant, easily making the Twentieth Century one of the most amazing periods in human development. We went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in just 66 years, and the Wright Brother's systems are still the basics for everything up to and including the space shuttle today."
I wrote the above in an earlier report about the Wright Brothers. Appropriate then, I immodestly suggest that it fits what we're seeing now in these pictures from the new Smithsonian Air & Space at Dulles.
Warriors from the honored past.
The Enola Gay. The most controversial exhibit in the museum, it is also the most inaccessible. The B-29, first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare, is raised above the floor and provided with glass shields to protect it from the overly zealous.
The Enola Gay's cockpit, seen from above. Having once shot a television story in there, I can tell you that it is roomy, both pilots had throttles on the sidewalls in addition to the flight engineer's array, and the engineer sat in the room just aft of the co-pilot's seat. Funny, a thing that sticks in my memory is the little round car-style ashtrays that were in the instrument panels.
Before we get too serious, here; this proves that you can go from the immense to the almost insignificant at Dulles. Its fans called the Crosley Flea "The Cucuracha." You don't strap into it, you wear it.
Sheer poetry in motion or at rest.
The Concorde.
Professor Langley's Aerodrome.
Samuel Langley, then Secretary of the Smithsonian, was one of the Wright Brother's competitors. He failed. You can see one of his mistakes in this picture. Langley thought the propeller was a paddle. The Wrights thought it was a wing. The Wrights were..right.
If you haven't planned yet to visit the new Smithsonian, well..Spring's coming and you really ought to see it for yourself.
