"No, move your right arm down," shouts paddles* on an aircraft carrier (appearing on a video screen) in front of a visitor at the new Adventures in Flight gallery. The visitor is learning from this screen (showing the sailor on the deck side-by-side with the visitor's own image. showing him how to use paddles to help a plane land). Through software magic this interactive exhibit even tells the visitor when his signals are incorrect! See the full story of the exhibits at this extraordinary new gallery at the Virginia Air & Space Gallery in LATE NEWS.    *PS. "Paddles" is aircraft slang for the office in charge of helping planes land.  Don't miss Adventures in Flight - and bring the kids. We personally "flight tested it" and it's wonderful.

Looking Forward, Looking Back at jet speed

Since opening in April 1992 the Virginia Air & Space Center has been informing and entertaining visitors. The facility on the Hampton waterfront, the official visitor center for NASA Langley Research Center, is visually striking with its immense glassed exhibit space soaring skyward.  It is a highly successful design that conveys a sense of space so appropriate for the museum’s themes.

To get the most out of your visit, start by watching the short video at the Orientation Theater. You’ll get a brief summary of the museum’s history and an overview of the exhibits.  The self-guided tour begins in a large open space where an array of small models traces the evolution of the airplane from its earliest days.  Full-size airplanes hang suspended from the ceiling.  Many of the planes hanging in the enclosed space had to be brought in before the final walls were put in place. 

The suspended planes include a prototype YF-16 Fighting Falcon like the Air Force precision Thunderbirds fly and a Chance Vought F4U-ID Corsair, a huge aircraft with a 38-foot wing span.   Another exhibited aircraft is a F-4E Phantom II that saw combat in Vietnam. There is also a Langley Aerodrome, Schleiche ASW-12 Glider, the world’s largest paper airplane, and an applications technology Satellite 6 as well as eight other planes.  These  can be seen from several levels; you can even look down on them from a gantry that crosses high above the museum’s ground floor.  The gantry also provides a birds-eye view of the Apollo 12 Command Module that has pride of place on the main floor.

On the ground floor is the Hampton Roads History Center and a 300-seat IMAX theater, with a giant five-story projection screen and 16,000 watts of wrap-around sound--both are entertaining and educational. 

Hampton was an official Royal Port for the Virginia colony.  A wharf exhibit focuses on the importance of trade and tobacco to the area.  In colonial times, the Bunch of Grapes Tavern stood on the site of this museum.  It was in this tavern that irate patriots gathered to discuss their unhappiness with English rule.  An audiovisual program brings the statuary-customers to life so that you can hear a conversation that might have occurred in this tavern.  Ship building was significant in this area, you’ll see exhibits detailing the struggle to create a navy and defend the shores against the British in the American Revolution and War of 1812.  Hampton Roads is forever associated with the dueling ironclads and there is a full-size replica of the casement of the Merrimack (also called the Virginia).  There is also a large scale portion of the Monitor.  It surprises many visitors to discover that the Merrimack, at 275 feet in length, was more than twice the size of the space shuttle.  Continuing the Hampton story, there are exhibits on the local watermen and on the influence of the navy in the area including replicas of carriers and models of aircraft carriers.  This museum is hands-on and with a push of a button you can experience the sights and sounds of U.S. naval aviation.  

The space gallery is on the second floor; at the exhibit entrance is a cradle with an infant dressed not in traditional bunting, but in a space suit.  Over the cradle there is a quote from the “Father of Soviet Rocketry,” Konstantin Tsiolovsky: “Earth is the cradle of mankind, but we cannot live in the cradle forever.”  Space research has been conducted at NASA Langley Research Center since 1917---early strides and future goals are encompassed in the gallery.  Achievements are recognized with items like the moon rock, the Viking orbiter and lander and the space shuttle exhibit.  Interactive displays let you play at being an “astronaut for a minute.”  There is also a simulated space launch.  Other topics covered include rockets, satellites, aerospace research exhibits and the role of space in science fiction.  Level three has an observation gantry for an overview of the hanging exhibits and an observation deck for a panoramic view of the Hampton Harbor.