Taking Flight

That's what we did recently, but not exactly in the air.

Instead, our flying was done at the Virginia Air and Space Museum in Hampton, VA. It's less than 2 hours from our The Frog & PenguINN home, but this was a first time visit.

The museum, which opened in 1962, is the visitor center for NASA Langley Research Center and Langley Air Force Base. It features interactive aviation exhibits covering 100 years of flying.

Its permanent collection is housed in a 110,000 square foot building that features a three-story glass atrium accessible from two exhibit floors. A catwalk level allows for viewing aircraft suspended from above. The museum houses over 30 historic aircraft that are displayed in several galleries or suspended from the ceiling.

The Adventures in Flight gallery features a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 passenger aircraft donated by AirTran Airways that dominates the gallery. Here, you can sit in the cockpit, first class and coach seats or try take off and landing using the on board flight simulator. Of course, we had to board this plane.

In the Space Gallery, we entered a room that simulated a manned launch to Mars. Narration and videos told the story of a rendezvous with a Mars Transit Vehicle. After the short flight, which compressed months into minutes, the narration concluded with arrival on a simulated planet Mars as doors opened into the gallery.
 

Once back to earth, we headed home after a fun and informative afternoon.