Close Encounter of the R2 Kind

A few weeks ago I had a little time to kill on a layover. So I took the shuttle from Dulles to the Udvar-Hazy annex of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. It's a great place for any space or plane nut to spend a few hours. It's actually on the grounds of Dulles airport and there's a $1 shuttle from the terminal.

One of the pop culture exhibits is the "Mother Ship" model used in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." It was interesting to learn that the model was made from parts of other commercially available models such as model trains.





I was also surprised that the builders attached some very small inside jokes that were too small to appear in the final film, but can be found on the model if you search long enough. I found a tiny TIE fighter, a graveyard, and some other things.

Here's a closeup of my little buddy, R2-D2, standing on the hull: