UAV Exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum
It's all about expectations, I suppose, but even knowing that I have to admit disappointment. We just got back from a visit to the National Air and Space Museum on the mall in Washington DC. If you have never been there, you really need to go. This isn't about the museum in general--we have been there many times. One reason I wanted to go this time was to see the UAV exhibit. Other than one small display case with an RQ-14A Dragon Eye, what you see in the photo above is pretty much it. In hindsight, I can't say what I expected other than "more." More information, more artifacts (maybe a sensor pod or two), more history. To add insult to my self-imposed injury (It's about expectations, remember?), the gallery beneath the hanging UAVs was closed--no chance of getting photos from different angles.
So, what is the point of this post? One, misery loves company, so please feel bad with me. Two, if you happen to be planning a trip mainly to see this exhibit, you might want to hold off.
Here's a LINK that gives info on the UAVs in the exhibit. My photos aren't all that great, but here are a few more:
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Comment by Anish on November 6, 2011 at 6:40am -
In time we hope this would improve ;)
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Comment by dusl on November 6, 2011 at 7:23am -
that is a good thing for uav fans
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Comment by Scott Plunkett on November 7, 2011 at 10:40am -
Looks like fun, but you are right, the lack of size of this exhibit is disappointing, especially in light of the overall expanse of the facility as a whole.
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Comment by Wayne Dancer on November 7, 2011 at 11:52am -
I am not sure, but the Pioneer on display in the Smithsonian may be one of the 1/2 scale trainers.
Davis Monthan AFB museum (www.pimaair.org) has a few more historical UAVs. They have the D-21B drone that mounted on the back of the SR-71, the ADM-20C Quail, AQM-34L Compass Bin, Radioplane OQ-3 (the drone built by Marilyn Monroe), Globe KD6G-2, QH-50 DASH, YQM-98A, and the MQM-57 Falconer.
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Comment by Benjamin Trapnell on November 7, 2011 at 12:47pm -
One can also go to the annex out at Dulles International. Global hawk and MQ-9 (I think...)
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Comment by Wayne Dancer on November 7, 2011 at 7:42pm
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The Annex is more awesome overall. So much eye candy there.
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Comment by Mike Phillips on November 7, 2011 at 10:05pm
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They all seem to be lacking the control stations.
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Comment by John Johnson on November 8, 2011 at 8:34am -
Wayne, the Pioneer at the Smithsonian is a full scale airframe. I flew that exact airframe (159) all over the U.S. and the Mediterranean to include U.N. missions of Bosnia and humanitarian support flights over Albania. I guarantee you that no Pioneer at sea ever looked as pretty as 159 does in the photo because every landing was a crash landing in a net something broke every time. But we patched them up as best we could and flew them again.
The Smithsonian used to have a multimedia display delivering an overview of UAV ops over Desert Storm, but their displays change often.
Mikes photo of the control station is actually a Pioneer UAV Ground Control Station (GCS). It would be cool to see a display showing this old technology compared to new technology. 8086 processers were the brains of the Pioneer GCS and a mechanical plotter (middle) was used for tracking.
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Comment by John Johnson on November 8, 2011 at 8:35am
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A little Navy Aviation trivia...The Pioneer UAV is only aircraft the Navy had that removed its tailhook when it operated from a ship and put it back on when operating from land.
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Comment by Cliff-E on November 8, 2011 at 2:58pm -
Yes, Dulles annex >> downtown.
Also, if you're touring the area, check out (my old stomping grounds) the Nat'l Cryptographic museum at Ft. Meade (cough: NSA). There's some planes and other interesting "things" as well.
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