In case you haven't got the picture yet from all the previous posts... you
can't go wrong with either choice. I lived in the DC area for 3.5 years.
Been to the mall museums multiple times, saw U-H shortly after it opened
(and shortly before moving away). They are both fabulous. It was before I
started flying myself (but the seed had been planted many years before).

Downtown, one of my biggest beefs was the crowds. There are a lot of
museums (all great, and if you have interests outside aviation and mucho
time... ya gotta go to the mall). U-H was brand new when I visited, and the
crowds were more reasonable, and that made some difference for me. Maybe
it's busier now... maybe because of the "remote" location it only attracts
the harder core aviation buffs... I don't know. What I do know is walking
in and seeing a blackbird laid out in all it's splendor before me, along
with countless incredible examples of aviation history, and being able to
walk up close to them (man, what I'd give to sit in a few cockpits) was
pretty damn cool.

To go back to the beginning and the only critical point of my post... you
can't go wrong with either. Just go and enjoy. You won't be disappointed.

"John T" wrote in message
m...
Cub Driver wrote:

For a hard-core aviation nut, no question that the Udvar Hazy annex is
the place to be.

I agree - at least as far as "big" goes. Most important "firsts" are
still downtown, though, and I don't know of any plans to bring SpaceShip1
or Voyager to Udvar-Hazy. Nonetheless, to get within a couple feet of the
Blackbird, Enterprise, Concorde and Enola Gay is impressive at U-H.

There's a full-bore food facility (just box lunches at U-H,
at least when I was there).

This has changed. The old Subway box lunch is gone while a new
full-service McDonald's has opened next door to the museum shop.

--
John T
http://sage1solutions.com/TknoFlyer
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