Love at first sight
18 February, 2008
So there I am, sitting in the Udvar-Hazy Big-Ass Hangar outside Dulles Airport. I’d been there for a few hours, wandering about with some of the DC flickrites. The floors are concrete, I wasn’t seeing anything; my feet hurt and I was discouraged. I looked up.
Ah, now THAT’S the stuff. Snap snap.
Wow, look at that baby. Have I ever seen anything so graceful?
You know…I’m no poet. Maybe it’s true what they say about the thousand words, so here. Just look at her.
Ah, there she goes. Keep your wings level, beautiful.
I scuttled around on the floor trying to get all kinds of other angles, but there was an SR-71 Blackbird in my damn way.
Did you know it’s the fastest plane in the world? Visitors to the Udvar-Hazy Center like to point this out. Heck, I was even doing it. (Mach 3.)
18 February, 2008 at 11:28 am
So what is that beautiful long-winged thing up there? Is it English or Irish?
Susan ’63
18 February, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Rosegrower, that beauty is the 100% American Bowlus-DuPont glider (sailplane) built by William Hawley Bowlus and Richard C. du Pont in Delaware. This one is the “Falcon,” and was commissioned by a WWI fighter pilot/hero, Warren E. Eaton, who founded the Soaring Society of America after the first World War. High performance gliders like this were used in the 1930s to train engineers (and pilots) in the finer points of aeronautics, aircraft design and construction, an industry in its childhood that matured greatly during the decade before WWII. Eaton set the American soaring record–over 9,000 feet– in it in 1934.
It really is quite beautiful.
And Techne, the apple does not fall far from the tree!
18 February, 2008 at 5:11 pm
The Soaring Society of America! What a great name!!
18 February, 2008 at 9:28 pm
So, if you take the fastest plane in the world on the busiest travel day of the year do you avoid traffic and get to your destination sooner? It’s a mystery…