Woke up early due to excessive aircraft noise, I guess my first night being a Saturday of a holiday weekend, there weren't many nocturnal cargo flights. The FedEx Cessna Caravan fleet didn't move. Last night it was Sunday; apart from the FedExes, the Aloha and other noisy Boeing 737-200s were off delivering the Sunday papers to neighbouring islands.
I could smell beer; it was then that I remembered that I'd put my 2 remaining bottles of Third Shift in the freezer last night before I expired. Why I did that, I don't know, as I was never going to drink 6 in one evening. Anyway, there was a sort of beer slush puppie mess to sort out. Oops.
So, my last 12 hours in Hawai'i - I thought I'd better spell it right once - and I have survived the US Customs and Border protection, the mystery of Oneworld and missing flights, Hurricane Arthur and the new security regulations for US bound electronic devices. So far so good.
Having cleaned up the slush I thought I'd best check my homebound reservation and see if I could check in for the first flight at least. No, I can't check in online and the US Airways app won't allow me either. I have a look at ba.com and aa.com to find that, surprise, surprise, my JFK-London City leg is missing on both. But curiously the London City-Amsterdam sector is there. No point worrying that US Airways only shows me getting as far as JFK, it always did.
I try 1-800-AIRWAYS from the room phone...'callers are waiting for an excess of 1 hour'....then try skypeing the UK Executive Club number. Same. I try ringing aa.com, prepared with a list of PNRs and my ticket number. I actually spoke to a helpful human who told me not to worry, 20 minutes later, actually sorted it out and BA4 shows in my aa.com itinerary at least.
.
So off to the Pacific Aircraft Museum which is on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor.
A nice lady from Alabama asked if I would take her family's photo so I asked her to take a photo of me and mine. The car park was one of those entertaining observational things for a European used to the idea of park and walk (park and ride being available when you have to park 2-3 miles away from where you want to be); there was a fair amount of car park anger brewing as the spaces were a 10min walk away and people seemed to think that a shuttle bus should be provided instead of legs.
Because it's an active naval base, no photos or video or selfies once on the shuttle bus that takes you to the sights. Shame as the USS Ronald Reagan was just being tugged away from USS Pelieu with jolly jack tars manning the rails.
Apparently, this is one of the actual Zeros that attacked Pearl Harbor.
Ye olde Control Tower and the Hawaiian flag, not surprisingly, the only time the Union Flag appears in a US state flag. July 31st is Hawaiian Flag Day....can't say I saw as many of these as I did US flags, maybe due to the sheer volume of military on the island.
A Raytheon testbed outside the hangars in the static display. Not sure why it's here, maybe a radar test connection with Pearl Harbor. Rather than hang around, I had this romantic notion that I'd be able to get close to the Ronald Reagan as she left port at the end of Lagoon Drive close to the rotation point of 08R (the 'Reef' runway) departures.
An hour or two later, all the F-18s departed from Hickam, presumably to their home on the carrier, about 20 in total.
There's two US Airways flights to Phoenix tonight. One is cancelled, luckily it's not mine, :). Out of interest I replay a couple of hours from my time at the end of the runway and notice that NASA appear to have a role watching over us from above, which made me start thinking about the security measures that must go with the carriers....presumably subs and drones overhead. NASA drone showing on FR24 over the Ronald in plane sight at FL225 is presumably testing or researching something (new payload?); although it is widely googlable as being involved in Project Ikhana - research into forest fires - clearly there won't be any over the sea and it seems to have had an upgrade since then. N.B. any active duty military drone that's up there too will not show on FR24.
Because it's an active naval base, no photos or video or selfies once on the shuttle bus that takes you to the sights. Shame as the USS Ronald Reagan was just being tugged away from USS Pelieu with jolly jack tars manning the rails.
Apparently, this is one of the actual Zeros that attacked Pearl Harbor.
Ye olde Control Tower and the Hawaiian flag, not surprisingly, the only time the Union Flag appears in a US state flag. July 31st is Hawaiian Flag Day....can't say I saw as many of these as I did US flags, maybe due to the sheer volume of military on the island.
A Raytheon testbed outside the hangars in the static display. Not sure why it's here, maybe a radar test connection with Pearl Harbor. Rather than hang around, I had this romantic notion that I'd be able to get close to the Ronald Reagan as she left port at the end of Lagoon Drive close to the rotation point of 08R (the 'Reef' runway) departures.
Well it's a way off but she sailed out of the channel
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| Why do I take photos of flowers when on hols?... |
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| Learjet that's part of the exercise |
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| locals doing a 'St Maarten'. Ish. |
There's two US Airways flights to Phoenix tonight. One is cancelled, luckily it's not mine, :). Out of interest I replay a couple of hours from my time at the end of the runway and notice that NASA appear to have a role watching over us from above, which made me start thinking about the security measures that must go with the carriers....presumably subs and drones overhead. NASA drone showing on FR24 over the Ronald in plane sight at FL225 is presumably testing or researching something (new payload?); although it is widely googlable as being involved in Project Ikhana - research into forest fires - clearly there won't be any over the sea and it seems to have had an upgrade since then. N.B. any active duty military drone that's up there too will not show on FR24.
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