Key Exhibits Include Shuttle Enterprise And Enola Gay

It's opening day for the National Air and Space Museum's newest facility, the long-awaited Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Intentional Airport (VA). Vice President Dick Cheney, who dedicated the extension, called it "a monument to the many great achievements in flight."

Cheney said the museum clearly is worth the 30 mile drive from the Smithsonian's main campus in Washington (DC). "I've been looking forward to coming here for a tour," Cheney told the crowd at Thursday's dedication ceremony. "I'm extremely impressed by what I saw this morning."

He wasn't the only one. "I could probably jump in it and I'd probably know where everything is because it's just like riding a bicycle." said Col. Bob Shawn, standing in front of a P-38 Lightning similar to those he flew during World War II.

Retired General Paul Tibbets, pilot of the first aircraft ever to drop an atomic weapon in war, was equally impressed. Although somewhat controversial, Tibbets said he was excited at seeing the Enola Gay (above) on prominent display at the museum. "When I came in here and saw this thing, the symbols, looking the way it looked," Tibbets said, "I wanted to get right in there and taxi it out."

For pilots attending Thursday's ceremony, it was an emotional day. Col. Richard "Butch" Sheffield, one of the first pilots ever to fly the fastest aircraft in the world -- the SR-71 -- said seeing the reconnaissance plane on display at the Udvar-Hazy center took his breath away. "I thought it was awesome. I came in on the upper deck there and I looked down on it and there were a bunch of spectators standing around and they were just going 'ooh' and 'aah.' It's a very dramatic looking airplane."

FMI: www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy