The Udvar-Hazy exhibit, located at Dulles Airport in DC, is where the Smithsonian Institution exhibits historic air and spacecraft that won't fit into the Air and Space Museum at the National Mall. Among the military aircraft exhibited at Udvar-Hazy are the B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay", the P-40 Warhawk, the MiG-21, and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Photos below the orange cumulus cloud. (LOTS of photos--if you're not a military aviation history fan, your eyes may glaze over; if you are, then grab a cup of joe or brew, relax, and enjoy.)
The Udvar-Hazy hangar.
Curtiss P-40E Warhawk. WW2 fighter. American pilots flew the P-40 in China as volunteers with the "Flying Tigers", and were melded with the US Army Air Force in 1941.
F4U Corsair. WW2 fighter. The distinctive bent "inverted gull wings" allow the extra-long prop blades to clear the ground.
SR-71 Blackbird, Cold War era photo-reconnaissance plane. Still the fastest plane ever built (as far as we know).
Ryan PT-22 Recruit, a WW2 trainer.
Lysander IIIA, British WW2 airplane. Originally developed as an artillery spotter, it was used during World War Two to deliver supplies, equipment and agents to Resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe.
N3N-3, an American Navy trainer that stayed in use from the 1930's to the early 1960's. It was known as "The Yellow Peril", and came in both land-based and seaplane configurations.
F-105D Thunderchief. An American fighter/bomber from the Vietnam era, known as "The Thud".
Soviet SA-2 "Guideline" surface-to-air missile, known to the Soviets as the "Dvina". In use throughout the 60's and 70's. In 1960, a Soviet SA-2 shot down the U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers. In the later 1960's, Vietnamese SA-2's shot down large numbers of American aircraft during the Vietnam War.
UH-1H helicopter. Officially named the Iroquois, it was known to troops in Southeast Asia as the "Huey", and became the iconic symbol of the Vietnam War. The Huey is the second-most-produced US military aircraft in history (beaten out only by the B-24 Liberator WW2 bomber).
Sikorsky UH-34D Seahorse. American Vietnam-era helicopter. Originally developed for the Navy as an antisubmarine craft, it was also adopted by the Army as a transport and utility chopper, under the name "Choctaw".
F-100D Super Sabre. American fighter from the 50's and 60's, it was the first of the "century series" and the first US fighter capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. By the time of the Vietnam War, it was relegated to the close-air support role.
F-14D Tomcat. American Cold War-era Navy fighter. In the 70's and 80's it was the principle carrier fighter; by the 90's it was placed in the ground-attack role after being replaced as a fighter by the F-18. This particular F-14 shot down a Libyan MiG-23 fighter over the Gulf of Sidra in 1989.
F-35B Joint Strike Fighter. Currently being produced to serve as the common attack fighter for all US forces. It is the most expensive weapons project ever undertaken by the US.
A6-E Intruder. US Navy attack plane from the Vietnam era.
RF-8G Crusader. US Navy photo-reconnaissance plane. Originally developed as a fighter in the 1950's to the Vietnam War, it took over the photo recon role until the early 1980's.
T-33A Shooting Star, US trainer version of the P-80, the first operational American jet fighter. P-80's saw action in the Korean War, but were outclassed by the Soviet MiG-15.
F4-S Phantom II, US Navy fighter-bomber from the Vietnam War era.
Soviet MiG-21F "Fishbed C" fighter. First deployed in 1959, the MiG-21 was in production until 1985, and is still used by many nations. It was the principle fighter used by the North Vietnamese Air Force during the Vietnam War.
American F-4 Phantom and its principle opponent, the Soviet MiG-21.
Soviet-made North Korean MiG-15bis "Fagot B". Korean War jet fighter.
F-86A Sabre, American jet fighter from the Korean War.
North Korean MiG-15 and its principle opponent, the American F-86 Sabre.
The JB2 "Loon" missile, an American copy of the German WW2 V-1 Buzz-bomb, developed in 1944 from captured models. None were ever used in combat.
P-61C Black Widow, a US WW2 night fighter. The first fighter airplane specifically designed to hunt at night by radar.
J1N1-S Gekko, Japanese WW2 night fighter. Known to the Allies as the "Irving". Originally planned as an escort fighter, it proved too slow, and was redesigned as a night fighter and reconnaissance plane.
MXY7 Ohka Model 22, a Japanese piloted bomb, intended as a suicide plane. Powered by a rocket engine, the Ohka ("Cherry Blossom") was carried to the US fleet by heavy "Betty" bombers and then piloted into its target, detonating the 2,000-pound warhead. The Model 22 was the newest version with a more powerful engine and longer range; the war ended before any Model 22's could be used.
Focke-Wulfe FW-190F, German WW2 fighter. Many of Germany's leading aces, particularly on the Russian Front, flew the Focke-Wulfe.
Dornier Do-335A Pfeil, a German fighter developed near the end of WW2. The unique "push/pull" configuration, with one prop at the nose and the other at the tail, gave it a top speed of 475 mph. The war ended before it could go into production.
Arado Ar-234B Blitz, German jet bomber. The first operational jet bomber, the Blitz was deployed in late 1944, but was never available in large numbers. The bomber was flown by a single pilot, who also functioned as gunner and bombardier.
M6A1 Seiran, Japanese seaplane bomber. The Seiran was unique--it was designed to be carried underwater by an aircraft-carrier submarine, which could surface, pull three folded-up Seirans from their tubular hangar, and launch them by catapult. They were intended to strike targets in the US and the Panama Canal, but the war ended before they could begin their missions.
N1K2-Ja Shiden Kai "George", Japanese Navy WW2 fighter. An improved version of a floatplane-based fighter introduced in 1944, the "George" was more heavily armored than the Zero fighter but could also outperform it, making it a match for the American Hellcat and Corsair. But the Japanese were never able to manufacture it in large numbers.
P-47D Thunderbolt, American WW2 fighter. Known as "the Jug", the P-47 was heavily armored and was used largely in the ground-attack role.
OS2U Kingfisher, US Navy WW2 floatplane. Carried aboard battleships and heavy cruisers and launched from catapults, the Kingfisher served as a reconnaissance, rescue and antisubmarine aircraft.
P-38J Lightning, US Army WW2 fighter. Used mostly in the Pacific, where its long range was an advantage. The highest-scoring American ace of the Second World War, Richard Bong, scored 40 aerial victories in a P-38.
B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay". Dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. The Enola Gay was a "Silverplate" version of the B-29 that was specifically modified to carry atomic bombs.
Hurricane Mark IIc, British WW2 fighter. Not as good as the Spitfire, but available in greater numbers, the Hurricane was the real workhorse of the Battle of Britain in 1940.
Vought-Sikorsky XR-4c, an American helicopter used for rescue operations during the latter part of WW2. Shown here in cutaway view.
F6F-3 Hellcat, US Navy WW2 carrier fighter. The replacement for the F4F Wildcat, the Hellcat was designed as a Zero-killer, and won air superiority for the US in the Pacific theater.
1909 Wright Military Flyer. The first military aircraft, used by the US for observation and reconnaissance. This is the only replica aircraft at Udvar-Hazy--it is a copy of the original in the Air and Space Museum.
Halberstadt CL-IV, German WW1 ground attack plane. Introduced in 1918.
Caudron G4, French WW1 bomber. Introduced in 1915, the Caudron was capable of bombing cities in Germany.
Nieuport 28C1, French WW1 fighter used by the US. The US had no fighter aircraft of its own, so it used French-built Nieuport 28's and Spad 13's.
Me-163 B1a Komet, German WW2 rocket-powered fighter. Known as the "People's Fighter", it was intended to be a cheap fighter that could be produced in large numbers, but the war ended first.
The Fritz X, a German radio-guided anti-ship bomb introduced near the end of WW2.
AGM-86A Ground-Launched Cruise Missile. When it was first introduced in the 1980's, the GLCM was used solely to deliver nuclear weapons. Small, fast and hard to detect or intercept, the cruise missile changed the Cold War nuclear equation, making both nuclear bombers and nuclear ICBMs virtually obsolete.
P-26 Peashooter. One of the first American all-metal monoplane fighters, it was built in the 1930's. A few P-26's fought against Japanese Zeros in the Philippines in 1941.
Cessna O-1A Bird Dog, an unarmed American spotter plane used during the Vietnam War.
Hiller 1031-A-1 Flying Platform. In the 1950's, the US military experimented with one-man aircraft that could be steered simply by shifting the pilot's body weight (like today's Segway). It turned out to not be one of their better ideas, and was dropped as unworkable.
Stearman PT-13D Kaydet, American WW2 trainer. This particular plane, the "Spirit of Tuskegee", was used to train the Tuskegee Airmen, the US's first all-African-American fighter squadron.
Boeing FB-5 Hawk. US Navy carrier fighter from 1926 to 1930. This particular Hawk served for a time aboard the USS Langley, the first American aircraft carrier.