Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles Airport

Updated: October 2026 – On the southern edge of Washington Dulles Airport stands a hangar big enough for a Space Shuttle, a Concorde and an SR-71 at the same time. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is the large annex of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum – and is connected to the runway system by its own taxiway. From the observation tower you look out at landings at the United Airlines hub, and down in the hangar at about a century of aviation and spaceflight.

This page shows you which exhibits you must not miss as a spotter, what the observation tower really offers, how to get there without a car and how to organize your day sensibly.

Why the museum stands at the airport

The main building of the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington is famous but far too small for large aircraft. Many pieces of the collection were therefore kept in storage for decades. The solution was a second site at Dulles Airport, where space is no issue and aircraft can taxi in under their own power.

The construction was made possible by a donation of $65 million, which Steven F. Udvar-Házy pledged in October 1999. Udvar-Házy came to the US as an immigrant from Hungary and co-founded the International Lease Finance Corporation, one of the big aircraft lessors. The building was designed by the architecture firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum. The center opened on December 15, 2003, almost exactly 100 years after the Wright brothers’ first powered flight.

In 2010 an extension wing co-financed by Airbus was added, into which the restoration workshop and the collection storage moved. In total the site covers about 71,000 square meters of space. According to Wikipedia, 169 aircraft and 152 large spaceflight objects were on display in May 2012, and in 2023 around 1.2 million visitors came.

The airport next door: Washington Dulles

Washington Dulles Airport opened in November 1962 and is still known for Eero Saarinen’s terminal, whose curved roof is among the icons of airport architecture. It is operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. In 2025 Dulles handled around 29 million passengers.

Important for you as a spotter: Dulles is the long-haul gateway of the capital region and a hub of United Airlines. In addition there are international airlines, many of them from Star Alliance such as Lufthansa. Expect widebodies such as the Boeing 787-9 and the Boeing 777-200ER – how to tell the two apart at a distance is shown in the article Telling the Boeing 777 and 787 apart.

The airport has four runways:

Runway	Length	Position
01C/19C	3,505 m	North–south, center
01R/19L	3,505 m	North–south
01L/19R	2,865 m	North–south, newest parallel runway
12/30	3,201 m	Crosswind runway

Which runways are in use at any moment depends on the wind. The museum itself is connected to the runway system by its own taxiway – that is how the Concorde, Dash 80 and SR-71 also made it under their own power right up to the hangar doors.

Space Shuttle Discovery

In the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar stands the exhibit many people come to Chantilly for in the first place. Discovery was the longest-serving and most-flown orbiter of the shuttle fleet:

• 39 missions and a total of 365 days in space, about 240 million kilometers – more than any other orbiter.
• First flight with STS-41-D at the end of August 1984, last flight with STS-133, landed on March 9, 2011.
• The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard Discovery in 1990 (STS-31).
• Discovery flew the return-to-flight missions after both disasters: STS-26 in September 1988 after Challenger and STS-114 in July 2005 after Columbia.

Discovery came to Washington on April 17, 2012, piggyback on the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft N905NA, with a victory lap over the National Mall and then a landing at Dulles. It has been in the museum since April 19, 2012. There it replaced the test orbiter Enterprise, which never flew into space.

Around Discovery stand satellites, rocket stages and capsules. For the full-length shot, go up to the gallery; for details such as heat shield tiles, thruster nozzles and the three main engine nozzles, stay down below.

SR-71 Blackbird 61-7972: the record-setter

Anyone coming through the main entrance first looks at the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. The example with serial number 61-7972 has a history directly tied to this place: on March 6, 1990, Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida flew the aircraft from Los Angeles to Washington and needed 1 hour, 4 minutes and 20 seconds for it – an average of about 3,418 km/h. It then landed at Dulles and went into the collection.

In 24 years of service with the US Air Force, 61-7972 accumulated a good 2,800 flight hours. For you as a spotter the aircraft is a prime example of US military serials: the serial number follows the pattern of fiscal year and sequence number. How to read such serials is explained in the article Decoding US military serials. If you want to see more of the Blackbird family, you will find further examples at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton and at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson.

Photographically the SR-71 is a challenge: black paint swallows light, and spotlights create harsh reflections. Expose a bit tighter and watch the light edges on the fuselage and chines.

Airliners: Concorde, Dash 80 and Stratoliner

In the commercial aviation section stand three aircraft that each shaped an era.

Concorde F-BVFA. The Air France aircraft first flew on October 27, 1975, in Toulouse. After about 17,800 flight hours it made its last flight on June 12, 2003 – to Dulles, straight to handover to the Smithsonian. Air France had already ended scheduled Concorde service on May 31, 2003. Type history and background are on the page for the Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde and in the article History of the Concorde. A counterpart from the Air France fleet, incidentally, stands in the Musée de l’Air in Le Bourget.

Boeing 367-80 “Dash 80” N70700. The prototype from which the Boeing 707 and the KC-135 tanker emerged first flew on July 15, 1954. It became famous for the barrel roll that test pilot Tex Johnston performed on August 6, 1955, over Lake Washington in Seattle – in front of thousands of spectators at a water sports event. Boeing gave the aircraft to the Smithsonian in 1972, and it made its last flight to Dulles on August 27, 2003. You can read the whole story of the first successful US jetliner in the article Boeing 707.

Boeing 307 Stratoliner “Clipper Flying Cloud.” The only surviving example of the first airliner with a pressurized cabin used to fly for Pan Am. More on the type is on the page for the Boeing 307 Stratoliner.

One detail for freight fans: the hangar also holds the Dassault Falcon 20 with which FedEx once began operations.

Enola Gay and military aviation

A large part of the Boeing Aviation Hangar belongs to military aviation. The best-known and at the same time most controversial exhibit is the Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. It stands fully assembled in the hangar, and you can get close enough to grasp the bomber’s dimensions.

For type collectors the one-of-a-kind German aircraft from World War II are especially interesting. According to Wikipedia, the center shows, among others:

• the only surviving Arado Ar 234 Blitz, an early jet bomber,
• the only surviving Dornier Do 335 Pfeil with its tractor and pusher propellers,
• the flying wings Horten Ho 229 and Horten H.VI as well as the rocket interceptor Bachem Ba 349 Natter.

In addition there is a Lockheed C-121 Constellation of the US Air Force, the military version of the airliner. If the type fascinates you, read the article on the Lockheed Constellation.

Many smaller aircraft hang from the ceiling above the large exhibits. That makes the hangar impressive but confusing: take time for one walk-through on the gallery and a second on the hangar floor.

The observation tower: spotting over Dulles

The Donald D. Engen Observation Tower is named for Donald D. Engen and offers a 360-degree view over the grounds. According to the Smithsonian, from here you can see aircraft taking off and landing at Dulles. For you that means: real long-haul operations with United widebodies, flights to Europe and regional jets – but from a distance.

What you can realistically expect:

• Distance: The runways are quite far away. With 400 mm 35mm-equivalent you only get airliners filling the frame when they taxi favorably or land on nearby runways. A teleconverter helps with registrations but costs light.
• Glass: You shoot through windows. Hold the lens hood right against the glass or use a rubber hood to avoid reflections. Polarizing filters often amplify color fringing with glazing – better to leave them off.
• Heat shimmer: On warm days the air wobbles over the concrete. Your best chances are in the morning and on cool, clear days.
• Runway direction: Whether approaches come toward you depends on the wind. A look at a flight tracker beforehand shows you which runways are active.

Honestly: the tower is not made for the perfect airliner portrait. For record shots, rare registrations and an overview of one of the most important airports on the US East Coast it is still worthwhile. Which focal length suits which distance is explained in the article Focal length for plane spotting.

Light and photography in the hangars

The hangars are huge, high and not evenly lit. Daylight comes in through skylights, and spotlights add to it. The result is mixed light with different color temperatures – shoot in RAW, and you can correct the white balance cleanly later.

Equipment that has proven itself:

• Wide-angle lens for the SR-71, Concorde and Discovery as a whole. Without a short focal length you cannot get the long fuselages in the frame from close up. More in the article Wide-angle and standard lenses for spotting.
• Fast standard zoom for details, cockpit windows and registrations.
• Long telephoto lens only for the tower. If you do not want to carry it all day, leave it in the car until the afternoon or pack it in a suitable camera backpack.

In the hangars a lot hangs above your head. For shots from below a light wide-angle lens is ideal, and for aircraft on the ceiling a medium telephoto. High ISO values are normal here; modern noise reduction saves a lot – see Noise reduction with AI denoise.

Getting there: Metro, bus and car

The Udvar-Hazy Center is in Chantilly in the state of Virginia, about 40 kilometers west of downtown Washington.

• Metro and bus: Take the Silver Line to Innovation Center station. There you transfer to Fairfax Connector bus 983, which stops right at the museum. Depending on the day of the week the bus runs about every 25 to 60 minutes. Since November 2022 the Silver Line also has its own stop at Dulles Airport – handy if you want to go straight to the museum after landing.
• Car: As of October 2026 parking costs $15 if you arrive before 4 p.m.; if you stay less than 30 minutes you pay nothing. The pay machines accept credit and debit cards.
• Taxi and ride-hailing: There is a separate lane for pickup and drop-off without a parking fee.

If you are going spotting in the US for the first time, the article Plane spotting trip to the USA has tips on rental cars, entry and equipment.

Combining Udvar-Hazy with other spots

Because the tower only delivers distance photos, it is worth combining with a classic outdoor spot. The first choice in the region is Gravelly Point Park at Reagan National Airport, where aircraft on approach pass just over your head. Everything about it is in the article Gravelly Point in Washington.

The main building of the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall is a destination of its own and combines well with Gravelly Point in one day. If you are on a longer US tour, the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force and the Pima Air & Space Museum belong in the same league. At New York JFK Airport, the TWA Hotel awaits with a very different piece of aviation history.

Rules in the museum and at the airport

The Udvar-Hazy Center is a federal museum with a security check at the entrance. Expect a bag check like at other Smithsonian museums and keep your equipment compact. Respect barriers, do not climb on gallery railings to get a better angle, and do not block walkways with a tripod or a large backpack.

Verdict

The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is one of the great must-visit destinations for aviation fans worldwide. Where else do a Space Shuttle, the fastest Los Angeles–Washington run in the form of an SR-71, an Air France Concorde and the forefather of all Boeing jets stand in a single hangar – with free admission?

Anyone who wants to photograph scheduled traffic in series will not get their fill from the tower alone. With an early start, a wide-angle lens for the hangars, a telephoto lens for the tower and a side trip to Gravelly Point, though, Chantilly becomes one of the best spotting days the USA has to offer.