The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) is one gigantic museum with two locations. Fat planes, skinny planes, angry planes, pretty planes, planes that fly high and planes that fly low, planes that go fast and planes that go slow, nearly 275 in all, sitting in the galleries throughout the downtown museum and floor and dangling from the hangar roof so that visitors can view them in genuine flight poses, banking and diving and cruising and even traveling upside-down.
Kent stands on the floor of the museum and moves slowly and surely around the "Spirit of St. Louis", a wonderful aircraft. Kent points to this spot and that spot on the plane and tells small stories, all about a living creature, gliding along smoothly, happily, as though a successful flight means as much to it as to Charles Lindbergh, as though they shared their experiences together, each feeling beauty, life, and death as keenly, each dependent on the other's loyalty. The "Spirit of St. Louis" and other well-known pieces of history share museum with their more famous relatives, such icons of flight as the Wright 1903 "Flyer", the Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis", North American X-15, and the Apollo 11 Command Module "Columbia".
Ask Kent where to find any of the planes on display, and he tells you exactly where to go, whether you need to go into a gallery at downtown museum or hangar at UHC, and even where you'll find the best view. Ask him about the strange look of the plane next to the Douglas World Cruiser "Chicago" and Kent doesn't miss a beat: "Lockheed Vega," he says, "in 1932, exactly five years after Lindbergh's historic solo flight across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart flew this Vega solo across the Atlantic becoming the first woman to do so".
As visitors marvel at this aesthetically pleasing aircraft with a spruce veneer monocoque fuselage and a spruce cantilever wing, as it seems, Kent deflects their attention to the Lockheed Electra 10E airplane next to the Vega. It's only a small twin-engine Lockheed Electra model, but it's Kent's way of explaining the groundbreaking career and mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart continues to captivate fans worldwide. Looking forward, he explains, her journey to becoming one of history's most famous female aviators is an inspiration to all. "Amelia Earhart loved the challenges and triumphs that the aviation industry brought," Kent adds, "During her wondrous career she set numerous men's and women's records for speed, altitude and distance. Her talent, strength of character and determination made her a role model for individuals of all ages worldwide."
Kent's method of bringing visitors in for a close look and backing out for the big picture mirrors the zoom-lens quality of the entire place. It's airplane overload, a feast for the eyes spread out from the world's largest museum at mall and most modern hangar 28 miles away. The point of NASM is to Commemorate, Educate and Inspire, yes, but it's also to get the most of the Smithsonian's aviation collection where the public can see it. "It doesn't matter which way you look," Kent says. "You'll always see something really fascinate here. It's so much different than the other museums in the world. When you're standing up in the Milestone Gallery in flagship Museum at downtown or spacious entrance hall at the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport, you can grab the whole picture and get a real good feel for the entire National Air and Space Museum right away."