The hot and cold Xmas/NY break

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JY271 NAS-PLS
ATR42-500
VQ-TRS
On time

I returned the car fairly early at the airport, or more correctly, parked it in the short term carpark, put the ticket and key in a lock box in the glove compartment and then took a video of the condition of the car and where it was located. Then used WhatsApp to send the video to the hire car company.

Then I could head to the Domestic and International terminal, not to be confused with the US dep/arr terminal.



Was very quiet early in the morning with only the Inter-Caribbean desks open right down the far end. Saw a 'Pineapple Air' desk and some other local airlines.

Very quick security and I don't recall any outbound immigration again. Went up to the departure lounge area and got a mexican brekky wrap, but had to go to Dunkin Donuts for anything vaguely resembling coffee.


ATR42-500 was being prepped on the tarmac and shortly after, for boarding, we went downstairs and just walked out to the aircraft.


Some Nassau shots on departure:



Note the cruise terminal.

Then after a zero-service one hour flight, it was descent into Providenciales, Turks & Caicos.





JY (InterCaribbean) seem to have a larger fleet of the Embraer-145s rather than ATRs.

 

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I'd booked another AirBnB for the stay here and couldn't check in after the morning arrival, so went and found a cafe/restaurant in the main Grace Bay beach area, for some late morning brunch.





Lovely spot. Quite representative of the whole of Grace Bay with lovely white sand and that same azure water. Mostly tourists from the US but I have heard the occasional Brit accent. Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI) is another British Overseas Territory, but uses the USD as its currency.

They drive on the left. It is therefore strange that Avis would give me this hire car:

Drive on the left, but from the left seat.
Also, a speedo that is in kmh, but all speed signs are in mph. Random.

Some images from the balcony of my accom, next to a canal.

 

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Royal Turks & Caicos GC was my leisure whilst here:


More old coral outcroppings around this course.





It's a tough gig, but someone has to do it.

This marks 85 (out of 195 countries with golf courses) I have played in. The 195 number is always open to debate about what actually constitutes a country. eg: does this one, as a British Overseas Territory count, or should it be considered as the UK? Is Greenland a country, or is it covered by Denmark; Bonaire and Netherlands; New Caledonia and France; etc. I do consider all of those examples separate. What I don't consider separate is Eng, N.Ire, Sco & Wales: I consider those to be the UK and it only gets one line on my tracking spreadsheet.

Country 100 (for golf) will hopefully be coming up in the next few years, so should it be South Korea, or Mexico? I have either of those as an option, specifically chosen as they both have a World Top 100 ranked golf course which I would plan to play during my visit to that country.

 

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After golf I found a Mexican restaurant that had cricket on! So that became the site for dinner.



I actually sat outside and was fortunate I chose to do so, as it meant I saw the aftereffects of the SpaceX Starship 'rapid unscheduled disassembly' which occurred over the TCI. I started the thread about contrails or a rocket whilst sitting there. For those who haven't seen that thread, this was the view:


View looking straight up from my table. Curiosity piqued, I then walked out into the little square area next to the restaurant.


This was the view looking to the nor-west, or the direction Starship was coming from as it burnt up.


This was the view looking sou-east, the direction the debris was travelling.

No one from the restaurant had any clue what it was at the time.

After finishing my meal they'd just started screening the Aus-W v Eng-W one day international game from Hobart, so I sat at the bar and watched that for a while, chatting to the staff about the view of the sky from earlier. Due to AFFs global reach and 'always on' knowledge, I was able to show the staff the post from @offshore171 explaining exactly what it was. I had to laugh when one American voice also obviously finding out what it was, quite happily yelled out that Elon Musk could EAD. (iykyk) No sympathy for the Starship break-up there.

 

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AA1901 PLS-MIA
B737-800
N992AN
Timings TBA

Well I’m seated in my J seat and the door is closed but our scheduled departure time has just come and gone. It’s been like this for ten minutes now. The aircraft arrived about 20 minutes early and boarding started 30 minutes before sched dep. Boarding was complete 15 mins later, but now nothing. Flight crew gave some vague message about awaiting clearance during boarding but nothing since door closed.



Four rows of J and all seats full as expected on a US carrier. The rest of the plane must be very lightly loaded as boarding was very quick and there was no faff with overhead bin space. I can’t actually see the Y cabin from row two due to the dividers behind row 4.

Barely acknowledged welcome on entering the aircraft and no interaction with the cabin crew since. No PDBs for anyone. In fact the only time the crew have spoken to pax is when they had to repeatedly tell the pax in row 1 to put their carry on bags above them.



15 minutes late and we’re finally taxiing. Flight mode on until MIA in an hour.

 

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Uurghh. Single runway with no taxiway, resulting in backtracking requirements at both ends = lots of waiting to depart. I’ll write up a specific post later on when the travel is done for the day. It was comical.

We departed 50 minutes late but arrived only 10 minutes late, unsurprisingly due to 40 minutes of schedule padding!

After immigration and the excessive security I’ve reached the MIA AA Flagship lounge thanks to my lifetime QF SG which normally just sits quietly in the background.

 

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Need to back up for a post and mention PLS airport.

There were a number of Tripadvisor threads about the airport in the Providenciales forum and none were complementary. Long waits and overcrowding featured regularly, especially in the early afternoon when a bank of North American flights depart. My flight was scheduled at 1143 which is early in the bank, so I didn’t foresee any problems.

Dropped the Avis hire car off at their depot about one kilometre from the terminal, then they ran me down to departures with their shuttle. No waiting at the AA Priority lane, which I could’ve used via oneworld Saph, or the fact I’d booked J. Only took about two minutes to have my boarding passes in hand and walk the 200m to international departure security.

Shoes off again, but minimal waiting and into the small and already fairly cramped central departure gate area.





Many people had gone up the stairs shown in the first image as there is an open air seating area up there. I’d suggest the gate area was designed to accommodate maybe two or three simultaneous flights, but the departure board looked like this:



Immediately before these flights there was an AA 737 for Charlotte at 1140 and my flight to MIA scheduled for 1143.

Before the bank of larger RPT flights commenced there were a number of bizjet departures. There are five aircraft active from this screenshot with four opposite the main terminal. I’d seen a LOT of bizjet movements during my time in the TCI, which is not at all surprising as it’s a lovely and not yet overdeveloped place.



One that took my interest was this cool looking thing which had arrived and might have just been refueling. Also the BBQ code caught my eye.



In summary, PLS needs to build a new terminal to cope with the number of passengers moving through. While they’re at it they should probably get a full length taxiway sorted.

 

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Onto the issue with a single runway at PLS and the requirements for backtracking to both the departure end, and after an arrival.

There is no full length taxiway at PLS and the main RPT ramp is on the northern side, close to the centre of the runway, opposite a GA (mostly bizjets) ramp. Further to the east on the northern side of the rwy is a regular GA ramp and then at the eastern end is the InterCaribbean Airlines parking and maint facility.



On my AA1901 flight to MIA we pushed back from the middle of the terminal area with this kind of view.

A Caicos Express Beech 1900 was just landing and that cool little black jet was waiting opposite where we were going to wait for permission to enter the rwy.



We pulled forward to be facing the bizjets and waited for an AA A321 to land.



We then had to wait whilst that jet turned around and backtracked to the RPT ramp, where it entered through a different taxiway near us.



The problem for that aircraft was that it couldn’t safely turn into its gate as the rear of our aircraft must have been in the way. So we both sat waiting whilst the bizjet departed. It didn’t backtrack, just used an intersection departure which was lucky for it. We couldn’t enter the rwy as there was more inbound traffic.



This Cessna had been orbiting and waiting to land and then there was our AA sister ship with the very similar flight number, also lined up for arrival.

The Cessna landed and then we entered the rwy, which I thought was going to be really tight if we needed to backtrack and then depart ahead of AA1900, so I figured as the Y cabin was lightly loaded, maybe we too were going for an intersection departure rather than full length. Instead we turned left, rolled the 100m down to the other taxiway and went back into the RPT ramp behind the A321. It could then pull forward into the gates. Effectively we just did three sides of a square.



Then AA1900 could land (and backtrack).



It therefore looked like this, with another bizjet also holding and waiting.



AA1900 reverse thrust engaged.


We’d also taxied further forward by this time, to the third of the taxiways to/from the RPT ramp, probably so we didn’t block them by holding on taxiway A as we did to the A321.

But we had to keep waiting as there was also an Air Canada A220-300 arriving. And an InterCaribbean ATR42 had snuck in front of us whilst we did our taxiing dance.




So we waited for that aircraft to also backtrack and get to the RPT ramp. Right time for some departures now with the state of play this:



No.
There was a US Customs patrol aircraft which had been out (departed from PLS that morning) doing some surveillance work and now it was arriving.





And so was JetBlue…
Also note not just how congested the RPT ramp was getting, but also the two aircraft waiting down the far end, as to get from their parking they needed to taxi along the runway to get to their pax!





Finally, after B6 backtracked and then the JY ATR departed (the same aircraft I had flown in to the Turks &Caicos with three days earlier), we could finally enter the runway, track back for a full length departure and line up!



Huzzah!

Timeline of the buffoonery for anyone left with the will to live:
1112 - scanned my boarding pass at the gate to board.
1115 - seated in 2A and watching the ramp as well as FR24.
1125 - boarding complete.
1143 - scheduled departure time.
1150 - push back.
1208 - enter rwy to taxi around to clear blockage.
1235 - actual departure.

 

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Some other gratuitous Providenciales shots from departure.


Grace Bay on the left and looking toward the other Caicos Islands in the background.

Left turn to head north, giving a good view of the lagoon.


Then another left turn to head toward MIA and back toward Providenciales.


On finals for MIA.


MIA is a regularly busy AA hub.


Busy inside the terminal too. I didn’t have to change terminals just walk a couple of hundred metres to the Flagship lounge and then another couple of hundred further from there to my connection gate after about 90 minutes lounge time.


It’s worth noting that at MIA I had to wait about 30 minutes for immigration, then collect bags and redrop them with AA (at their drop area close to the baggage belts), then reclear security to get back airside and to the Flagship lounge. Oneworld status or flying J doesn’t help for any of that time.

 

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AA1985 MIA-DCA
B737-800
N344PP
Scheduled dep 1716 / Actual 1752
Scheduled arr 1959 / Actual 1958

I left the Flagship lounge about 30mins before scheduled departure to stretch the legs and stroll down to my boarding gate. I wasn't flying on the B777 pictured below. It's one of those quirks of the US that because they have no outbound immigration, terminals are not segregated for international and domestic departures, so wide body and narrow body aircraft are all mixed in together.


What was noticeable were the extra TSA agents and police presence, and specifically around my gate for a flight to DC. There were even some loitering after the boarding pass scanner, but before the jetbridge.

J full of course and still plenty of names showing at the gate on the 'upgrade list', for those hoping, but unsuccessfully so. In fact the whole flight was full, as there was also a standby list with about 20 names on it and maybe five of those with green ticks and a seat assigned. Full flight = general faff. First it was the oblivious fools who stop when they find their seat and then get stuff out of their bag or mess about with it in the overhead locker, all the while blocking the aisle and everyone else from moving. Then because the pax are incentivised to bring everything on board with them, there's the lockers are full faff, and some bags being taken out of the cabin to be put in the hold.

Took my J seat and noticed this sticker:

That was on the armrest covering the tray table. As this flight was scheduled for about 2:40 duration there was supposed to be dinner served. After boarding was (eventually) complete, one FA came around with water (only) as a PDB and pretended they didn't know about the seat problem. They commented something like, I don't know what we can work out if you're going to join us for dinner this evening. Both the way it was said (is it my fault?) and the general attitude of not caring about the issue was on form for pretty much all of my flights on UA and AA during this trip.

If I was to make a generalisation about US cabin crew, it would be that the majority seem to just be going through the motions and barely pretending to care about what they're doing. A minority say the right things but come across as not genuine (that insincere "oh thank you so very much for..." (doing something trivial)). A small number seem to be professionals and genuine. I assume this is the accepted outcome of the airlines having squeezed the wages of these staff so much that their attitude is: if you pay me the minimum you can, I'll only do the minimum I have to. Probably rightfully so. It does just add to the wholly less than premium experience that flying is in the US.

Then of course there's this from row 1:

In this case it was a fifty-something lady. On the earlier flight from PLS-MIA both 1C and 1D were teen/early 20's girls who did the same for almost the entire flight. I'd have no problem with someone doing it if they were on an overnight flight and trying to get some sleep, probably with a blanket over their legs.

We taxied out past one of those Condor jets masquerading as a sea snake:


The delay on departure wasn't helped by the time of day.


The sunset was a little extended as we climbed to altitude.


Smooth flying conditions but the seatbelt sign remained on for maybe 20 minutes longer than I would have expected. When the cabin crew did come around to take dinner preferences, they noted that there was likely turbulence ahead and that dinner may not be served. As it was there ended up being very little disruption and minor at that, and everyone got their meals. I solved AAs problem for them by putting my backpack on my lap with the slightly rigid back half (laptop storage section) facing up and balanced the tray on that.

After two hours airborne I was almost back in DC for an arrival temp of 3 deg C.

 

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As I mentioned near the start of this thread, when inbound through DCA a few weeks ago, I had booked a hotel near the airport in Crystal City. When looking to book this stay the prices were outrageous as I was looking for two nights 18-20 Jan and that 20 Jan date had significance in DC. Instead of paying the USD2000+ per night, I'd found a Sonesta Suites hotel out near IAD (Dulles Airport) about 40 minutes away which was still offering normal rates and had booked there. As my departure flight on the morning of 20Jan was at 0600 I also decided to book a hire car so that I could get to and from DCA more easily. Collection from Hertz DCA was easy enough and Google Maps got me safely out to my hotel with relative ease.

Even though it was after 2200 by the time I'd checked in and got to my room, I wanted to use their small gym to properly stretch my legs after a day of mostly sitting around. Only a few people saw me walking back to the main hotel building in tshirt and shorts along this path, at near freezing air temps.


The hotel was nice; huge room; and for some reason they had free breakfast on for the MLK and Inauguration long weekend. I was looking forward to my day near Dulles tomorrow.

 

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The weather forecast was not good for 19 and 20 Jan and UA had been sending me emails offering free changes to my flights to avoid potential issues. I'd had a play around with both their site and google flights but couldn't see anything that jumped out as being a great change. Plus, my plan for the free day was to go to the nearby Air & Space museum's Udvar-Hazy Center. Free entry and I could have driven there and paid $15 for parking, but the bus to/from the museum went past very close to my hotel, so I had decided I'd just catch that for a couple of dollars.

After my mediocre free breakfast I walked down to the bus stop happy that paths seemed to be cleared just like the roads.


It was only 10 minutes or so and I was at the front of the museum. I'd caught the 0915 bus and then found the museum doesn't open until 1000 so it meant 30 minutes standing outside in the cold drizzle in my (you're being a stupid Aussie again!) light golf jumper.





The museum were looking well prepared for the forecast snow later in the day:

In the other half of the carpark they had a ute full of bags of salt.



At this point I could go through a bunch of explaining about what I saw in the museum, but @Human has recently done that with more passion than I could possibly muster, so go and read through these posts from #133 onward and then come back and I'll add some of my favourite images and comment.

Post in thread 'A Boyhood Dream Fulfilled: Space-Geek Tour of the USA'

Jan 12, 2025

The sight that confronted me upon entering was overwhelming, if not intimidating. Wow! Thanks so much to all the AFFers who encouraged me to go – I was seriously considering giving Udvar-Hazy a miss, and I would have missed out on such a treat if I’d done so!





I turned to the information desk to discover that a free tour had started just a couple of minutes beforehand, and that if I ran I could catch it. I did so, and in the end the tour went for almost exactly two hours.

I’ll share a couple of interesting facts that I learned from the...

• Human

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As I was second one through the door when the museum opened at 1000, I made a beeline for the Blackbird and the Shuttle whilst there weren't many others around. I also noted there was one of the free tours at 1030, so planned to go and join that.

Maybe my initial excitement was tempered a little by having previously visited plenty of aviation museums and seen probably most of the aircraft here, but once I got going it was back to being like a kid in a lolly shop again. Looking right, oh is that a Thud; looking left, oh, there's Enola Gay and the Concorde.



Trying to think about it now, I have visited, amongst others:
IWM Duxford; RAF Museums Cosford and London; BBMF, Coningsby; Scottish National Museum of Flight; USAF Museum Dayton; Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson; Kennedy Space Center; Airbus factory and Aeroscopia Toulouse, and Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Paris–Le Bourget. And of course, AWM; RAAF Museum, Point Cook; HARS and the Darwin Aviation Museum.

But you're not getting this sight anywhere else:


Such wonderful lines. The thing looks fast just sitting still in a room.




Then behind the SR-71 is the Discovery. You really can just stand there and just look at the thing for so, so long.







The guided tour had about 15 people milling about at the meeting point at start time. There was a brief intro about the Center and the two tour guides introduced themselves. One was a NASA guy, the other a former USMC F-4 and F-18 driver. Showing my preferences I went with the latter's group.

We started at the early stages of powered flight 1905-1920 with a lot of contrasts between the museums displays and the Wright Flyer. Then more time on developments through WWI highlighting some of the developments in aircraft design that could be seen and contrasted on the display pieces. Next was over to Enola Gay (apparently named so only shortly before the atomic weapon drop sortie on 6 Aug; named by the Captain of the mission, after his mother) and into plenty of specifics about the B-29 aircraft:
- one of the first long range bombers to be pressurised so that the crew were less fatigued.
- fuselage mods and engine development to carry the nuclear weapon.
- the fact they'd not conducted a live airdrop of the weapon before doing so over Hiroshima, so the crew didn't know what to expect.


I recall seeing the other famous B-29, Bockscar, at the USAF Museum at Wright-Patt.

We then moved down to the B707 prototype and the Concorde. Apparently Air France had promised to give a Concorde to the Smithsonian early in their operation and they followed through.




Another with such graceful lines.
I know I've walked through at least two Concordes in the past, one was definitely at Toulouse and the other might have been at Le Bourget, or in Scotland. It's a pity you can't go into the exhibits at this museum.

The tour then went into the space hall and spent most (all?) of the time in there at the shuttle. Lots of discussion and explanation about the fuel usage (the orbiters three main engines were started first in the launch sequence because they could be turned off in the event of an aborted launch), the two solid fuel boosters (once they were ignited they burnt continuously until expended), and the external tank (the large orange one) which housed the liquid oxy and hydrogen which the orbiter burned during launch. The orange colour was due to insulating foam sprayed on the tank. The tour guide (docent for the official title) answered questions on all sorts of things about the orbiter and the shuttle program.

Finally, we went to the military aviation section and not surprisingly, congregated at the F-4S Phantom II, painted up in Marine colour scheme (even though it was actually a USN jet). Spent a lot of time there with quite a few war stories about that aircraft. At the official end of the tour three of us remained for further chat as the tour guides also take up 'explainer' stations around the exhibits. In this case our guide remained at the F-4. Had some interesting missile employment chat based on his use of older weapons like the AIM-7 and earlier model AIM-9s. Nearby was an F-14 and I'd forgotten just how big the Phoenix was (recessed on one of the centreline positions)

 

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After a while I headed up to the observation tower which overlooks IAD. However, as soon as the lift doors opened up on the seventh floor, a change was very obvious and nothing of Dulles could be seen.



The snowflakes could be best seen on the windward side of the tower where they were getting caught in eddies. No photos show them well enough.


Couldn't see any aircraft, just these deer wandering through the falling snow, so headed back down to the aircraft exhibits.




For everyone with kids: a famous AirTractor paint scheme.


I remember reading about this Global Flyer aircraft in the mid-2000's when it was flown non-stop solo around the world. Took over two days if I recall correctly.

 

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Approaching closing time I realised I'd only had a brief sip of water at a bubbler during the day and that was it. The onsite 'Shake Shack' was to be an early dinner then and it closed 30 minutes before the museum. With that timeline established I went for a final walk around the Discovery.





I had a burger and a shake, watched the little snow falling outside and then ducked into the gift shop for some presents for back home.



I headed outside for the 1735 bus and even though it was freezing, still enjoyed seeing the snowflakes landing on my black jumper. I'm not a skier or snow sports kind of person, so it's still a novelty.

The paths had not been cleared for my walk back to the hotel from the bus stop. (DTKWIA?)


The museum was great and even after spending the full day there I reckon I missed seeing plenty of things. They have an IMAX on site where you can watch a number of aviation or space related short films, but I didn't go and see any of those. There were also some simulator rides which with more time I'd definitely have tried.

One final note, it was interesting to overhear some of the other 'patrons' as I wandered about the museum. Occasionally there was something interesting, but I was surprised by how, how can I put this, 'dumb' the conversation often was. There was certainly a correlation with how many of those inane comments were coming from people wearing red hats or clothing otherwise emblazoned, prominently, with their political affiliation... as an example, three young idiots were arguing about the shuttle mission where they carried a crew of over a hundred people into space. Apparently many/most of them were in the cargo bay area.

 

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I packed for the journey home after arriving back from the museum and then early the next morning (0300 early), I got up and started with something that I was quite worried about. All the talk had been about the blizzard weather and I'd seen the snow falling the day before. I now had to drive back to DCA and hope the aviation gods were smiling on me.


Task 1: get into my VW Jetta hire car.
I've lived in northern England and been snowed on, so I have some sort of idea. But this was not in my own car, nor at home. I'm very glad Hertz had a brush and scraper tool in the car. VERY THANKFUL. I brushed off much of the loose snow in the important areas but then there was ice underneath that I needed to scrape away from the windscreen, back windscreen, boot, driver and pax side windows and the headlights. What fun without gloves.

As soon as I could get into the drivers door I started it and set the demist to warm and the rear window heater on. Tried my best to scrape out around the wipers but didn't want to spend all morning there. I also tried pouring two water bottles of room temp water on the windscreen. It definitely helped clear the view forward, but promptly froze around the wipers. Oh well. Left the car running whilst I loaded the luggage and then drove down to the reception area and left the car running there too, whilst I went inside to drop off the key cards.

Task 2: get back to DCA alive.
I can confirm I drove pretty carefully and slowly the whole way. The roads were mostly cleared, but the car was advising me the outside air temp was 22F (~ minus 7C) and I could see patches of ice. The VW wouldn't let me CarPlay the map directions via bluetooth, only via cable and it only had the small USB ports not the proper sized ones (USB A or C?) that my cable used. So my phone was attached to one of the air vents, which with the warm air coming out of them, meant the phone kept trying to slip down and fall off. I followed the directions back to the rental car return successfully and there was even someone at rental returns at 0415 to check the car back in. The car arrived back still with most of the ice and snow on it!

Task 3: not suffer flight cancellations or delays on the way home.
It's going okay so far!