As some of you may know, the Smithsonian Institute (America's national museum system) has opened a new aviation museum just outside of Washington D.C. It's substantially larger than the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall, which is quite large itself. The following is a link to a Washington Post article that provides a "virtual tour." At the very least, you can get a sense of what you would see if you visited.

Sorry, the link didn't paste. Here it is.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/daily/graphics/udvar/udvarhazy.htm

Now that IS good news! Previously, a large part of the collection was in storage (there's still going to be a large part in storage), however for the real aviation nuts, the storage/ restoration facility was always worth visiting (where else could one see the biggest collection of WW2 German prototypes?) . Nice to see that in the states there is still a sense of priority when it comes to protecting our common aviation heritage....Jim

You said it, Jim. Not only are there many hundreds of AC, you can actually watch the currators perform the restoration process.

When I went, many years ago, they were refurbishing the Enola Gay, which had not yet been displayed publicly. They were testing out protective laquer coats to determine which ones would hold up best in the museum; they asked each person on the tour to touch the fuselage at 8 different points. I guess they ultimately decided that having the general population handle such an important historical artifact wasn't the greatest idea, so the plane has always been protected from contact in its subsequent public displays. Makes getting to touch it sort of special.