Washington DC Smithsonian Aircraft collection

I have just got back from two weeks in Maryland and Virginia. I was not sure if I would find very much of interest to me, but was amazed by what I found. Here are some photos from the Smithsonian museum (not the one in central Washington, but the one by Dulles airport). Some of these will be very easy to identify, others not so. Anybody fancy having a go?

These photos were taken at the Smithsonian at the mall which attracts most visitors:

Thank you Tim for posting these. My favourite is the last one - a 'flock' of vintage planes captured in mid-flight.

Very nice pictures there, definitely a place I need to visit thanks for posting them

Steve

is the Spirit of St Louis down for a refurb? - those definitely aren't the original wheels..............

Fandabidosie!:clap:

I heard that the Heinkel 219 was near to completion. The Horton HoIX/Gotha229 is going to take some mending to get it up to the same standard.

Like all the German secret stuff

I live less than 200 miles away from that place and have never been...........

Matt

Here are some photos from the Smithsonian museum (not the one in central Washington, but the one by Dulles airport). Some of these will be very easy to identify, others not so. Anybody fancy having a go?

Oh, go on then.

1 - Westland Lysander

2 - Vought Corsair F4

3 - Northrop P-61 Black Widow

4 - B-29 Superfortress 'Enola Gay' (couldn't miss that one!)

5 - Lockheed P38 Lightning

6 - B-29 again

7 - P38 again

8 - Hawker Hurricane

9 - Grumman Hellcat

10 - B-29 again

11 - Junkers JU-52/3M

12 - De Havilland?

13 - Republic P47 Thunderbolt

14 - Seen it in NASA / USAF photos, but no idea of the designation. Something Hiller? Didn't the pilot stand in the cage / platform? Hiller behind, because it's written on it!

15 - Dornier Do335

16 - Horten H111

17 - Arado AR234

18 - Kawanishi 'George'

19 - Japanese floatplane, don't know the make

20 - Arado AR234 again

21 - Focke Fa330 autogyro

22 - Kugisho Okha piloted bomb

23 - Dornier D0335 again

24 - ...and again

26 - Heinkel He219

27 - Messerschmitt Me163

28 - Something Japanese - Nakajima?

29 - Nieuport 28

30 - Space shuttle 'Discovery' (difficult one)

31 - Is that a US copy of a V-1?

32 - Some missile

33 - Discovery again

34 - Halberstadt CL.IV (bit of a giveaway on the side!)

35 - Halberstadt again

36 - Spad, not sure what model

37 - Same Spad

38 - Nieuport again

39 - Republican Thunderchief in front, F4 Phantom, Huey, Sikorsky, Chance-Vought Corsair (piston & jet!), F14

40 - Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (probably caught out here, I can't remember how to tell the difference between the variants)

41 - F4 Corsair again

42 - Lysander again, not sure about the yellow thing, Northrop flying wing, Northrop Black Widow again.

43 - Sikorsky something or other

44 - No idea

45 - Curtiss P40

46 - Same as 43

47 - Sikorsky, can't remember the model - the one that developed into the Westland Whirlwind? H19?

48 - German glider!

49 - De Havilland again?

50 - Something Italian - Macchi?

51 - Another Spad, different model?

52 - Spitfire, don't know what mark but a later one

53 - Maxim machine gun with synchroniser!! (difficult, that one!)

54 - Ryan 'Spirit of St Louis'

55 - V2

56 - N-A P51 Mustang (another hard one!)

57 - Mitsubishi Zero

58 - Same Zero

59 - Messerscmitt Bf109

60 - Some drone or other

61 - Bf109 again

62 - Fokker D7

63 - BMW WW1 aircraft engine, I'd guess from the BMW badge and the general style

64 - Pitcairn PA-5 Mailwing (difficult!), Boeing 247 (only because I saw it on TV the other day), Douglas DC3

65 - Some pusher, no idea

66 - Pitcairn etc. again, Ford Trimotor, 747 front end

That's a heck of a collection, very impressive. Thanks for the photos, Tim. If I'd realised how many there were I might not have started writing this! Now you have to mark it...

Crikey. That's very good. I think you got all of those right.

The V1 is a German V1 assembled from parts. The following rocket (32) is an Honest John.

There are four there which you didn't know and admittedly, neither do I.

Move to the top of the class.

Sean good work, I couldn't believe anyone tried them all I agree with you except:

12 Curtis Jenny

42 the yellow thing is a Ryan PT22, the same type as Harrison Ford force landed

43 Sikorsky R4

44 Kellett XO-60 last real attempt at a usable military autogyro

48 Grunau Baby, nice little glider saw one last year

49 Curtis Jenny

50 Macchi MC202

65 Voisin VIII

Maybe between us all we can do the full set?

Steve

Signs of a miss-spent youth making Airfix kits & reading Speed & Power. I was quite surprised how many I did know, but that might be more a reflection of how many iconic aircraft the Smithsonian has rather than any expertise on my part.

The Curtiss Jenny I should have got, it's obvious now you say but I just couldn't think of it & I always have trouble telling aircraft of that era apart anyway. De Havilland was a stab in the dark as I couldn't think what it was!

The Sikorsky I wouldn't know, apart from the obvious / iconic ones I'm not good on helicopters.

Similarly I'd never have got the Ryan trainer, the Kellett, the Voisin or Grunau, and I must admit the Macchi was a bit of a guess & I wouldn't have known the model. There are a couple of others, like the Pitcairn, I wouldn't have got if the names weren't in the photo!

If I'd realised how many photos there were I might not have started!

Sadly I start to lose interest once everything was built completely of metal and they stopped using avgas on aircraft so this was right up my street as I volunteer on aircraft of this period. The Ryan PT22 is a lovely aircraft to fly in with it's 'happy' 5 cylinder radial popping away up front.

Steve

Impressive collection!

Some very rare items if not all.

I live less than 200 miles away from that place and have never been...........

 

Matt

Same here!!

Nice to see the Enola Gay on public display after being neglected for so many years.

Excellent pictures need to go and visit.:-)

Nice to see the Enola Gay on public display after being neglected for so many years.

 

Excellent pictures need to go and visit.:-)

The Enola Gay receives a lot of attention from the wackos out there which I find curious because Bock's Car the B29 that delivered the second bomb has been sitting in one piece* for years-decades even at the airforce museum In Ohio without so much as a peep from those who would pour blood & ash upon the EG..... .

* Before the creation of the current Smithsonian avaition museum only the forward section of the fuselage was on display at their old facility.

Matt

Same here!!

Funny how that works?

Matt

Had a look at the Smithsonian website to fill in the gaps as no-one else is chipping in!

The Hurricane is apparently a IIc.

The Kawanishi George's proper designation is an N1-K2 Ja Shiden

The Flying Platform is a Hiller 1031-A-1, apparently the second prototype.

The Japanese float plane is an Aichi M6A1 Seiran.

28 was a Nakajima, a J1N1-S Gekko night fighter, known to the US as Irving. Apparently this is the last in the world, the others having variously been used as kamikaze weapons or scrapped by the US after the war.

Apparently the yellow V-1 is a JB-2 Loon, an American copy of the V-1 built by the Ford motor Co. which missed the war but was used in the late '40s to give personnel experience of handling missiles.

The missile I had no idea about is a Little John surface to surface missile, a smaller more mobile version of the Honest John with a range of 23 miles, in service only briefly in the '60s.

First Spad is an XVI two seater with a 240hp Lorraine engine, which the Smithsonian says was "slightly faster than the Spad XI, but had a lower ceiling and the same poor handling qualities"!!

The autogyro is, as Steve said, a Kellett XO-60 from 1943. Apparently they had a PTO clutch which spun the rotor up to lift speed before take off, allowing the pilot to make a jump take off and then shift power to the propeller for forward movement. Sounds a bit haphazard, and supposedly they were prone to accidents. In the end they were killed off by...

...the green helicopter, the Vought-Sikorsky XR-4C prototype, is the world's first mass production helicopter and the first with a single rotor. Also flew as the Hoverfly with the RAF. The silver one is a Sikorsky H-19, in fact a YH-19 and the first one of the model built.

The glider is, as you say, a Grunau Baby II B-2 from 1944.

They're much more complimentary about the second Spad, an XIII, of which they say "The fast and rugged Spad XIII was among the most successful fighters of World War I, in a class with the legendary Fokker D.VII and Sopwith Camel... The aircraft was particularly noted for its robust construction and its ability to dive at high speed"

Spitfire is an HF MkVIIc with a Merlin 61

I think the drone / UAV is a Predator, it's difficult to tell from the photo but it looks closest to the Predator in the collection.

BMW engine is a Model IIIA which was used in the Fokker D7 among others.

The pusher is as Steve says a 1916 Voisin 8 with a 220hp Peugeot engine, built as a night bomber.