autoevolution
 

Before Multi Billionaire Status,Steven Udvar-Hazy Made Airplane Models Out of Match Sticks

Suppose you ever wondered what you'd need to do to have a military aerospace museum named in your honor. In that case, we recommend checking out the life story of a Hungarian-American multi-billionaire by the name of Steven F. Udvar-Hazy.
Steven F. Udvar Hazy-Center Models 6 photos
Photo: Benny Kirk
Steven Udvar-Hazy ModelsSteven Udvar-Hazy ModelsSteven Udvar-Hazy ModelsSteven Udvar-Hazy ModelsSteven Udvar-Hazy Models
You may know him as the man whose $66 million donations to the Smithsonian Institute allowed for an official annex of Washington D.C.s Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. What we can gather from this is that Mr. Udvar-Hazy is A, a very big fan of aviation, and B, richer than most of us can comprehend. But that would be a gross oversimplification of a life lived perpetually at the turning point of history. A story of a man who escaped authoritarian regimes to find his way in America.

Before Steven Udvar-Hazy was the executive chairman of the Air Lease Corporation, he was a typical son of working-class Hungarians born in Budapest shortly after the end of the Second World War. Hungary, along with most of its neighbors were absorbed into the emerging Warsaw Pact in this time period. It was a life full of drudgery, oppression, and a lack of access to opportunities that Udvar-Hazy could only dream of as a child.

Like so many of us, Udvar-Hazy's kindled a lifelong love of all the machines that fly. Further still, the young Hungarian had always wished to access the model airplanes that children in the west took for granted or even neglected. In a spurt of genius that foreshadowed his rise to fortune, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

After emigrating to the United States via New York City at the age of 12, Udvar-Hazy became a frequent visitor to New York's Laguardia and Idlewild (later John. F Kennedy) Airports. There, he observed the airliners in the area and carefully mapped out their flight paths. It was an experience that came in very handy when he opened one of the first airliner leasing ventures, International Lease Finance Corporation. Udvar-Hazy left the company to found Air Lease Corporation in 2010.

Using common household items like paper, nail polish, chewing gum, and matchsticks, Udvar-Hazy forged his very own models. Models that depicted western aircraft like that, according to the communist party, didn't even exist officially. Icons like the Douglas DC-4 and Lockheed Constellation airliners. But also lesser-known models like the Curtis Commando cargo freighter and the Grumman S2F Tracker AWACS aircraft.

Long after most mass-produced models of the period have fallen apart and been lost to history, Udvar-Hazy's models remain. Encased for all to see in the museum's main lobby that Udvar-Hazy helped bring to life. Check back for more from our visit to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center real soon, right here on autoevolution
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)

Editor's note: Article contains self-taken photos used with the permission of the National Air & Space Museum.

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories