Location http://airandspace.si.edu/
Address: Chantilly, Virginia (roughly 45 minutes outside of Washington, DC)
Day Pass Cost: Free!
Parking Cost: $15 per car
Food Services: McDonalds.
Age Range: 7+
Stay Length: Expect to spend at least 2 hours, depending on your level of interest you could easily spend all day.
Worth the Trip: If you have the time and an interest in airplanes, you’ll be happy you went.
Overall: If you are a big aviation fan, you are going to want to check out the newer Udvar-Hazy facility. This museum houses the larger items in the Smithsonian’s aviation collection (as well as many smaller ones).
The two headliners are the SR-71 Blackbird and the Space Shuttle Discovery.
They are both really cool to see.
There are tons of other aircraft including a Condorde and an F-14.
The displays pretty sparce. It’s very much like a whole bunch of cool airplanes have been put in a giant hanger.
There is a lot less specifically geared towards kids and very little hands on as compared to the more kid friendly Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at the National Mall.
There was one plane (a Cessna) that you could take a turn at using the controls. It doesn’t run all the time as a volunteer has to be there to man the plane. Gordie really enjoyed that.
We spent a couple of hours at this museum, which was about the limit with our two small kids. My husband easily could have spent all day there, but there just wasn’t enough to keep Gordie engaged for a longer period of time.
If someone in your family is a real airplane fan though, you won’t want to miss the Udvar-Hazy Centre. It’s right near the Dulles airport so it would be a good stop if you have an morning flight into DC or a evening flight leaving DC.