This and the following communications will be a brief summary of my time in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. I won’t go into excrutiating detail, except possibly for the aircraft [come-on, I’m an aircraft geek].
I flew out from Heathrow, T5, on the 17:30 British Airways flight to Dulles it was a Boeing 777. I got bumped up to Premium Economy class which was nice and then did a seat swap so a family could sit together, this saved me and my new neighbour hours next to babies. The flight was wonderful [it says earlier I’m an aircraft geek] and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Upon arrival at Dulles, Rich was there to pick me up and question me about the flight. We drove home to Georgetown and had some rum and coke. Ended up sleeping at about 5am my time but did well and woke the next day feeling good.
After breakfast we drove past many sights to pick up Mazza and son from Union Station and from there we went the the Udvar-Hazy Extension to the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space Flight.
The extenstion part of the museum is absolutely, really excellent, so much space and so many aircraft of all types. The highlights:
- SR-71A Blackbird
- Orbiter Discovery
- The Enola Gay [I know!]
- F-14 Tomcat
- A-6 Intruder
- The second ever Pitts Special
After lunch and more geekdom we eventually drove back to Winfield Lane and had some drinks before taking Mazza and son to the railway station. We drove past more of the sights which will all be mentioned later in further communications. Dinner that first proper night in DC was a curry at the Taj of India in Georgetown, what else would three Brits end up eating?