It may not have the ‘rebellious hip’ status of the Fonz’s leather jacket or the personal comfort of Archie Bunker’s chair. But, just like those two items, Vic Powell’s hang glider is also in a Smithsonian museum--and now it graces an even newer ‘home’ than before.

Powell, USDA’s webmaster in the Office of Communications in Washington, DC, is into hang gliding, bigtime. In fact, he built his own hang glider, the “Valkyrie,” in his basement back in 1975. “I ‘hermited’ myself in my basement for two weeks to get it done,” he recalled.

That hang glider weighed about 48 lbs., had a wing span of nearly 31 feet, and was termed a “flying plank” because it has no tail. “Once I finished it I took it to the sand dunes at Nags Head, North Carolina, strapped myself into its seat, and gave it some good tests by flying it over the dunes,” he recounted. “Then for the next year I flew it over the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.”

But newer, more modern hang gliders were being developed that were even lighter and had ‘flexible wings’ which could fold up more easily for transporting. “The Valkyrie is a fixed wing hang glider, so its wing only folded in the center--and that made its transportability more difficult,” he acknowledged. “It required a trailer for transporting, instead of the flexwing models which can be folded, put in a cloth bag, and placed on top of one’s car for transport.”

Accordingly, in 1978 Powell donated the Valkyrie to the National Air and Space Museum. “I’d occasionally visit it,” he said. But in the early 1980s the Museum’s Sport Aviation display was removed and the Valkyrie was put into the Museum’s storage facility in Suitland, Md. “Then I lost track of it,” he said.

Fast-forward to December 2003 and the opening of the Udvar-Hazy Center, a new, spacious ‘satellite’ Air and Space Museum on the grounds of Dulles International Airport near Chantilly, Va. The new facility was designed to house the Air and Space Museum’s growing collection of ever-bigger aircraft and space vehicles--so it had to be big, itself.

And it is. In fact, it is reported that the entire National Air and Space Museum building, located on The Mall in Washington, DC, could fit with ease into one single room of the new structure.

When it is completed, the 760,000-square-foot new structure will house about 200 aircraft and 135 spacecraft in a ten-story glassy hanger on the grounds of Dulles International Airport.

“A few weeks after the new facility opened I went out there for a visit,” Powell related. “And as I was strolling through the Sport Aviation Section at the Center I looked up and saw something very familiar. I knew right away it was the Valkyrie, because its orange Dacron cloth wing was a dead giveaway.”

Hanging from the ceiling 15 feet above the ground, it is tucked between a pre-World War II-era trainer aircraft on its left and an air conditioning unit on its right.

“So I concluded,” he said, “that my 28-year-old vintage hang glider had been resurrected.”

But Powell didn’t see any identifying plaque for the Valkyrie. So he e-mailed officials at the Museum, providing them with additional history about that particular hang glider in their possession.

“They got back to me,” he said, “and explained that there was an identifying plaque--but it might not be easily located. They did appreciate the additional information I provided them--because they rarely get a chance to talk with builders of the aircraft they have on display.”

And is Powell’s name on that elusive plaque?

“Well, I must confess I don’t know, because I haven’t gotten out there to revisit the Valkyrie since I communicated with the Museum officials,” he said.

“But whether or not my name is on the plaque, I know that my TLC is all over the hang glider itself--and that’s what counts.” •