Future Pilot
September 20, 2009 at 3:15 pm

Washington D.C. and back! via Detroit & Minneapolis – May 2009 (LONG & 50+ Photos!)

Afternoon all!

As some of you may or may not know myself and fellow forum member Benjamin Percy (Airline_owner) went to Washington D.C. earlier this year. This was following our trip to New York back in May 2007, my trip report for that was very well recieved and I’m sorry it’s took so long to bring this one around! The details maybe lacking in some areas but I hope you enjoy reading this one again as much as you enjoyed reading my last one! The photos focus alot on the city in this report as you shall soon see.

Well on the morning of the 26th we arrived at Terminal 4 on a rather typical English weather day, yes it was hammering it down for most of it. This being my first use of T4 it was nothing amazing especially as alot of it seemed to be going for some major overhaul of the facilities, nevertheless we carried on with check in at which was still a Northwest Airlines labelled desk for NW781 to Detroit but we were presented with KLM labelled boarding cards for our Delta Airlines flight ;).

After the quick jaunt through security we got a drink and something to eat while watching the traffic in the dismal weather outside including another forum member Sam Pollitt (Ringway Sam) who was on another journey of his own to Ghana via Frankfurt, we watched his Lufthansa A321 depart and quite promptly dissapear into the grey. Up untill the night before I was convinced our flight to Detroit would be operated by a DL B767-300 but after doing a little bit more digging on what had operated the recent flights etc I discovered that our flight would be infact operated by the B767-400!

Being very chuffed with this result seeing as neither of us had travelled on this type before so were very much looking foreward to it, sure enough N828MH rolled into our gate looking very pro in that new livery.

Boarding was delayed by about 45 minutes for reasons I can’t remember but I was getting restless by the time we were allowed on and just wanted to be on the way. At a first glance I must say I was impressed with the B764 cabin which was spacious and airy and the seats equipped with PTVs were comftable, I had pre-selected seats 34A/34B before we got to the airport.

Unfortunately though our row of seats seemed to be cursed as the only two PTVs on the plane to malfunction were Ben’s and a ladies next to us, after a couple of goes restarting the system the FA’s gave up and said there was not much that could be done about it, it was an inconvieniance but hey we were on the way!

After a bit of a queue for departure we were finally away after departing 9L and climbed up to an altitude I cannot remember. I wish I’d done this sooner :D, the flight was not much less than 100% full but being Heathrows only daily flight to Detroit I can’t say I was surprised.

The onboard entertainment was good although at times both trying to watch one PTV with one set of headphones does have its disadvantages! Here’s some stunning scenery we overflew on the route and a quick view of the cabin :).

Before you knew it we were in the decent for Detroit and arrival on RWY 3L was a little bumpy but firm and not surprising considering the weather was just like what we left back in blighty! We pulled into a gate surrounded by company A319s/320s and other domestic traffic, the connection was going to be tight but after transitting security etc we just managed to get to our gate as they started boarding. Inside they had a mono-rail system transporting passengers to gates at the very end of this very long terminal which was something I’d not come across before but hey I’m not exactly a seasoned world wide traveller!

Next we were onboard NWA A319 (N365NB) for our quick one hour jaunt to Washingtons DCA airport! this flight was very full and I chose seats 18A & 19A so we could both get a window seat for landing. Being surrounded by a class of school kids was something of an annoyance but groups of school kids are commonplace in Washington as we’d find out later.

The interior of the A319 seemed very old and worn and wasn’t particulary impressive but seeing as the flight was only lasting an hour it wasn’t going to be much of a problem, we were served with a drink and snack on this flight which I found surprising given the length but also pleased with. This bad weather seemed to be following us around and yet again arrival in Washington was no better.

The approach to RWY 1 was very bumpy and as Ben will testify it did at times feel like whether he was going to get it on thre ground 😀 but as you can guess he did and we taxiied in and parked up at Terminal A next to company traffic. The terminal at DCA was interesting with departing passengers being mixed with arriving and it did seemed to be holding more passengers than it could handle but leaving the plane to leaving the terminal must of took no longer than twenty minutes and here we were, Washington D.C.!

We found the taxi rank made our way to the Omni Shoreham Hotel, this hotel was a bargain on Expedia where we found it. Four star quality was what it promised and certainly didn’t fail to deliver on as you will find out. The taxi journey literally took 10/15 minutes and the entrance was impressive, it’s got that classic feel about it and considering the hostel we stayed in back in New York and were happy with we knew this was going to be something different!

We checked in and made our way up to the room, have a look….needless to say it was awesome!

Well the city itself? was amazing, Washington has a very warm/humid climate even for this time of year despite the occasionly cloudy weather but that didn’t stop us doing the usual thing of walking everywhere, getting into the central of the city took no-longer than an hour but we soon also discovered how cheap/convieniant and brilliant the cities metro system was!

We visited nearly everywhere the city has to offer and instead of explaining I’ll let the pictures do the talking….

Dupont Circle

White House

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By: Future Pilot - 20th September 2009 at 15:17

Arlington National Cemetary

Pentagon City Mall

Embassy Row

Me and the boss man

As they say though all good things must come to an end and before you know it it’s time to go home, much like I said in my last report on New York, Washington is an amazing city and in many ways I’d rate it above NYC but they are both awesome cities although I can say this had more of a lasting effect on me and it’s somewhere I’d be quite happy living someday

Anyway another taxi back to Regan and it was time to go home, after arrival at the airport we had a bit of a wonder around and getting something to eat. It’s a nice modern airport to be at and with such great views of the ramp it’s not too hard to get bored, check in again was quick and efficient and we departing the same gate area we arrived in.

We also got talking to a pilot (as you do) telling us about his training etc, the gate area is comftable but with only a newstand or so to provide food/drink it can also get a bit boring bar looking outside at the ramp. For the first leg home and our flight to Minneapolis we would be getting a NWA B752 and sure enough N526US pulled upto the gate, it’s one of the older 757s flying today being in the air being as old as me at 22 years old!

The comfort wasn’t bad though and was certainly more enjoyable than the Airbus we’d took to get here, once again a full flight and an evening departure prevented me getting much in the way of photos for the final two legs of the journey but I’ll show what I can, departure from DCA was on RWY1 and gave some stunning overviews of the city as can be seen!

This flight was over twice the length of the last so we settled in for the flight once again being served with drinks and food, bad weather was once again hovering over our arrival and so there’s no pictures of the landing or the departure from MSP and it was a late night departure.

The terminal we arrived and departed from at MSP was very smart and busy, an excess of shops and places to eat ensured you didn’t get bored, waiting at our gate we noticed that next to us one of NWA’s B742s was awaiting with US Soldiers boarding presumably to head over to Europe and ultimately the on-going conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Boarding time came and NWA A332 (N861NW) was sitting at the gate ready to take us back to London and unlike New York the opportunity didn’t come to get into the flight deck and have a chat with the flight-crew so sorry no night time pictures from up front this time.

The A330 was once again PTV equipped and the 2-3-2 seating arrangement makes it ideal for people travelling in two’s etc, the seats were somewhat annoying though because regardless of what postion you moved them too putting pressure by sitting in them still made the seats go back a further inch or two and do the reverse if you got up making it slightly irratating for yourself or anyone behind you.

Once again luck was not on our side with the PTVs, this time affecting the whole a/c because it was June 1st and a new month they’d changed the IFE but not the inflight magazines or the screens themselves! so nothing on the menus or magazines related to what you were selecting i.e – selecting one movie would end up playing another and unless you skipped through to halfway or didn’t mind what you were watching it was irratating. As the pilot said thought we’d unfortunately chosen to fly in this limbo point where only one of the 3 components had been changed :(.

Not being the end of the world although it did render many parts of the IFE useless, a bumpy departure from MSP once again provided some light entertainment. As Ben had the window seat for the second half of the flight and ultimately the landing in Heathrow there isn’t much in the way of pictures from me at least but it was an enjoyable flight and after a 30 minute hold at Heathrow we were finally given clearance to land on 9L once again in some favourable weather for a change!

Back home and although having only spent a few days there Washington did have a big effect on me and I look foreward to the day I can go back! Now all that’s left to choose is where to go for 2010/2011! Roadtrip? 😀

The picture quality isn’t amazing and some maybe blurry but they’ve literally just been took from the camera/resized with a very quick edit but these are best for the use of this report. I hope you enjoyed reading and apologies that it took so long!

Tom 🙂