The King of Pointland

I'll Fly Away

This past Saturday, Chris, Jason, Robin, Sacha, Thomas, and I visited the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, located next to Washington's Dulles International Airport (IAD). IAD is an airport. There is only one IAD. An IED is an improvised explosive device. There are many IEDs. An IUD is an intrauterine device. If you put one in your uterus, it will probably prevent you from getting pregnant. Here is a picture of some IUDs. There are many IUDs, too. There may have been some IUDs at the Udvar-Hazy Center, but if there were, they were inside people, and I couldn't see them. Human Beings are very interesting creatures. You and I are fortunate to be human.

During my visit, I saw several famous airplanes, including the Enola Gay, which dropped the first nuclear weapon ever used in war; a Concorde SST, which has very very tiny windows; and an SR-71A Blackbird. In the gift shop, they sell stainless steel SR-71A shot glasses. I don't know whether these are the same shot glasses that were used on SR-71A missions, but they do have a picture of the SR-71A on them. I did not purchase a shot glass. I did purchase a Fisher Space Pen. What you see there is an example of "The Pen That Went To The Moon." I do not know whether my $6 chrome and plastic Space Pen went into space. I would like to believe that astronauts use "Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum" souvenirs on their missions, but our Earth pens would probably make them homesick.

I saw the Space Shuttle Enterprise, which was a test vehicle. The Space Shuttle Enterprise and I have made the same number of visits to space. I am not in a museum, though.

If you visit the Center, be sure to bring your historical-aircraft-engine-appreciation cap along, so that you can appreciate the many historical aircraft engines on display. After you see your fourteenth or fifteenth radial engine, you may begin to wonder how the hell they work, but don't worry, the museum has a motorized break-away radial engine model that takes all the guesswork out of answering that question. The model has lights, color coded parts, a shiny counter-weight, and a confident male voice which mysteriously refers to a diagram that is not there.

In the end, though, I was most moved by an aircraft with no motor at all: the Grob 102 Standard Astir III in which Robert Harris broke the glider altitude record on February 17, 1986. Imagine the frigid isolation, stark beauty, and vast emptiness as the sailplane gradually soared to 49,000 ft.

As we were leaving the museum, I told Jason about the glider. He stood pensively for a moment, looking up at the blue Virginia sky, and then he said something I still remember to this day: "You know, David, if one man, alone, can reach such magnificent heights, think what we all can do, together, to make the world down here a better place."