Donald D. Engen Observation Tower

Must visit if you’re at Steven Udvar Hazy Air & Space Museum. Accessible only through elevator. Wait can be long at certain times of the day, its worth the wait though. Great 360 view of Dulles airport and nearby Chantilly.

Amazing experience. Will be back. Easily accessible near the airport.

Super place, great views of Dulles airport and surrounding areas. You can also hear the communication between the Tower and airplanes, the staff there have info on the flights arriving and departing. No cost for entry, but parking is $15.

It was free and fun to look around the area. Mountains could be seen in the distance and planes were flying by to land at Dulles.

Loved watching the planes land and take off with a beautiful view of the mountains in the background.

Really great experience at the museum, don't miss it! You can see planes landing and taking off at nearby Dulles International Airport. Highly recommend!

Great place to watch the planes landing in IAD up close!

Probably really helped that there was no queue to take the elevator up. I’m fascinated to know what’s on Level 6 but the observation deck on Level 7 offers great views all around the museum, towards Downtown, over to the airport, to the Sully Historical Site (although I struggled to spot it) and super views of aircraft coming and going. A must-visit, and look out for the understated gem of being able to listen to Air Traffic Control radio live from the Dulles control tower (both it and its predecessor clearly visible from the observation tower). Another great aspect of the superb Udvar-Hazy Center!

You can see the aircraft approaching the airport and see the surrounding area. The tower here is a neat experience.

Pay only parking 15$.really nice lots to see and enjoy

Great place to see the aircrafts from great American inventions

Evening times after 3 is best time as we can see many large airplanes that usually come from Europe.

Great view of all the places landing! Just missed a C17 landing to deliver planes for the event the next day.

Totally love to go up into the Engen Observation Tower. Great views of Air Traffic inbound/outbound on all four of IAD Dulles's runways.

Before COVID it was closed for maintenance. Since April 2021 I have visited here twice and still haven't been able to go up for one reason or another.

Also, the time the Observation deck closes has changed. Instead of 4:30pm EST it's now 3:00pm EST.

I'd suggest calling first to make sure the Observation Tower Deck is open or not before you get excited.

They also told me that on Aug 23, 2021 it will be closed again temporarily ?!?

Hopefully on my next visit to Northern VA to see my grandkids they will have all the "Kinks" worked out and the Tower Observation Deck will once again be open.

We had an awesome morning here looking around. They have a scavenger hunt kids can do, which my daughter LOVED. She ended up getting a pin, a magnet, and a few stamps. This made the experience more enjoyable for her for sure.

Part of the air and space museum, amazing views and educational.

Great day trip.

Great place for watching planes land at nearby Dulles International Airport.

Very nice people who really know their stuff and are really into the topic.

Unfortunately closed due to COVID