This past weekend, the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center had its second annual open house. They opened the doors to the staff areas where restorations take place in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, a variety of items are archived, and more. We walked through the hangar, went on a freight elevator, saw the conservation lab, and looked around their library. I was pretty impressed by how many staff and volunteers they had. Panda was one of them! These people are totally aviation/space/history nerds and it’s cool to see their passion.

Massive hangar area with all sorts of things being painstakingly restored.

This plane flew the most missions in WWII: over 200!

Pristine archives. I was amused by the pink forklift thing.

Apparently this is what they used to film the spaceship in Star Trek.

They had a funny sign saying that yes, they do still use these catalogs.