Post by mick on Mar 8, 2022 21:16:13 GMT
Just returned from a long weekend in Los Angeles.
It has been planned for about two years, but owing to travel restrictions it was cancelled twice.
I eventually set off on Friday 25th February.
My route took me to DFW with BA. An AA 321 (or should have been!!) to LAX
Returning to Chicago with AA and onto LHR (also with American)
The plan being to do a bit of number crunching at Dallas Fort Worth on the outward leg and Chicago O Hare on the return (more about that later)
The day before I took my Covid Antigen swab (£50+) and added it to my Verifly app as requested by British Airways. (And AA for the return along with a passenger location form)
The Verifly app also had my NHS Covid pass, flight details, and US address (Hotel)
The test was returned negative less than an hour after the nasal swab. Phew!
Good to go!!
So having parked at the Long Stay car park on the Bath Road at LHR, I made my way to T5.
Here I caught the 12:15 to Dallas, which eventually left around an hour late.
A very full 10 hours ish flight to Dallas commenced on 787-9 G-ZBKA.
Having arrived at a fairly cloudy Dallas. I made my way to Immigration. Aaaaaarrrggh!!!
Massive queues. Took me over an hour to go through and being an hour late already I quickly realised that any spotting at Dallas would be brief as my connecting flight to LAX was in around another hour.
Having fought my way through TSA I, then with hundreds/thousands of other transiting passengers had to go through security once again! It was now that I and many others realised that the queues for security were even longer than the queues for immigration. Utter Madness! The BA passengers had already done this at LHR.
At this stage the many passengers with connecting flights started complaining about the likelihood of missing their flights (me included) Staff at DFW did not give a “flying one” and the bottom line was, I with hundreds of others missed our flights!
Having caught the monorail to the terminal my flight was going from to find it shut and empty. I found an AA member of staff who put me on the next available flight. This was leaving in 15 minutes from the %$£**£* terminal I had just caught the monorail from!!
So full running motion on I hurtled back to the terminal to find myself being the last to board the jam packed N843AA, 787-9 to LAX arriving around two and a half hours later.
Gasping for a beer it transpired that internal flights with AA do not supply alcohol!! So disappointingly a sprite was the drink of choice
Oh! and at DFW and Being dark when I left, I logged around half a dozen only! That went well!!
Getting out of LAX and to the hotel was a breeze with the hotel courtesy bus. This took me in about 2-3 minutes to the H Hotel Curio collection by Hilton
Checked in by 10pm (Been up 24 hours by now) and had a swift beer (8 dollars) in the bar! Oh that went down well let me tell you.
My room was on the 11th floor and having requested an airport facing room I wasn’t disappointed
Even in darkness you could capture movements on all four runways. This will do! The hotel is located very close to LAX and between the runways. The view was towards the ocean
Being shattered I just crashed out awaking in darkness around 5am on 26th.
Although being dark, armed with the excellent free Wi-Fi I and my “Have I seen it” app, captured a load of cargo movements. Interestingly they were landing on the South runways coming in over the ocean and taking off on the Northern runways towards the ocean.
Eventually once light, they reverted to landing and taking off on both runways North and South towards the Ocean
I was gobsmacked with the view from my room and after going down for a bit of breakfast (not included in the price) which with coffee came to around and expensive 16-18 dollars.
8CA69BFA-FAFB-44F5-9641-07D1FC57BF1F by Mick Childs, on Flickr
C5F52A79-1EC7-4281-9EDE-3D5DF331F5A6 by Mick Childs, on Flickr
All the grief of the previous day was soon forgotten as I made my way to the outside terrace on the 12th floor. Wow! What a view! You can see the Ocean to one side, downtown LA to the other and the snow-capped mountains in the distance.
6897B907-B7F2-4C96-A31D-0FA870418A98 by Mick Childs, on Flickr
Being 70-80 degrees, I settled here for the next few hours just potting plane after plane. They were relentless.
These images of stuff landing on North runway
156A479E-DBE3-4831-B09A-7A59083AFD58 by Mick Childs, on Flickr
6742BFE4-75A2-41AC-9DEE-CE045507755D by Mick Childs, on Flickr
FFC45523-B947-4385-B390-85064BEC8E2A by Mick Childs, on Flickr
545FEC91-E9BA-4FEE-8AC5-C19A69492CFC by Mick Childs, on Flickr
View of South Runway
951D4E75-1C72-4272-B6AA-E23D347043E3 by Mick Childs, on Flickr
Basically spent the next two days here. Awesome!
Now the hotel is not the cheapest and for three nights cost me around £150 per night. A pint of Bud or something similar was around $8 and an evening meal around 18-20 dollars. However the proximity to the airport and views more than made up for this.
I would also add that the roof terrace was only open to guests of the H Hotel Curio. Guests were given rooms in the upper floors and the lower part of the building was for the Homewood Suites. These guests could not gain access to the roof owing to the electronic room cards.
Worth bearing in mind if visiting as both use the same courtesy bus, foyer, bar and reception on the ground floor.
The only downside was that there was no bar/coffee shop on the terrace. However you could bring drinks food up from downstairs and some US spotters had Uber/pizza deliveries which they bought up to the terrace.
About 15minutes walk away along West Century Boulevard (away from the airport) was a Dennys which was good for breakfast and cheaper.
If you walked about 15 minutes behind the hotel you came to the famous In ‘n’ Out Burger and there are a few eateries/shops around here
View from In out Burger
23D96374-4B97-4934-8619-5B87FA35D7F6 by Mick Childs, on Flickr
14E51402-D613-47DA-9C18-AD333A4B60DF by Mick Childs, on Flickr
After making hundreds during my stay on the Monday morning at early o clock I took the hotel bus back to the airport and checked in for my flight to Chicago. A rammed N560UW 321 of AA took me to ORD in around 3hours.
Once at Chicago I had time for a meal, couple of pints and load of spotting from the piers (Airport Wi-Fi and flight trackers) and despite being here around four years ago still made bundles.
Eventually taking N778AN 777-223er back to LHR
3DA02227-AB26-4974-BBA7-0E023C71921F by Mick Childs, on Flickr
All in all tiring but brilliant and I would highly recommend the H Hotel Curio collection by Hilton. (Not to be confused by the Hilton Hotel further along by Dennys as previously mentioned.)
The roof terrace is as good as any thing I have ever come across.
It would be brilliant for the photographers. I am only armed with a Apple phone LOL!
I initially looked at staying at the Embassy suites on the South Side but having read the reviews and the cost I’m bloody glad I didn’t!
This was previously the spotter’s choice giving easy access to Clutters Park
As it happened despite planning on popping over to Clutters Park, I didn’t really need to. The only other place I visited was the In and Out take away location, well documented for spotters.
I could place the log on here but in essence there are loads of all of the major American airlines, Hawaiian, South American, (Viva Aerobus, Volaris, Aero Mexico, Avianca, loads of Cargo flights and Executive along with overflights.
Hope this is of some use for anyone thinking of visiting
Regards Mick
It has been planned for about two years, but owing to travel restrictions it was cancelled twice.
I eventually set off on Friday 25th February.
My route took me to DFW with BA. An AA 321 (or should have been!!) to LAX
Returning to Chicago with AA and onto LHR (also with American)
The plan being to do a bit of number crunching at Dallas Fort Worth on the outward leg and Chicago O Hare on the return (more about that later)
The day before I took my Covid Antigen swab (£50+) and added it to my Verifly app as requested by British Airways. (And AA for the return along with a passenger location form)
The Verifly app also had my NHS Covid pass, flight details, and US address (Hotel)
The test was returned negative less than an hour after the nasal swab. Phew!
Good to go!!
So having parked at the Long Stay car park on the Bath Road at LHR, I made my way to T5.
Here I caught the 12:15 to Dallas, which eventually left around an hour late.
A very full 10 hours ish flight to Dallas commenced on 787-9 G-ZBKA.
Having arrived at a fairly cloudy Dallas. I made my way to Immigration. Aaaaaarrrggh!!!
Massive queues. Took me over an hour to go through and being an hour late already I quickly realised that any spotting at Dallas would be brief as my connecting flight to LAX was in around another hour.
Having fought my way through TSA I, then with hundreds/thousands of other transiting passengers had to go through security once again! It was now that I and many others realised that the queues for security were even longer than the queues for immigration. Utter Madness! The BA passengers had already done this at LHR.
At this stage the many passengers with connecting flights started complaining about the likelihood of missing their flights (me included) Staff at DFW did not give a “flying one” and the bottom line was, I with hundreds of others missed our flights!
Having caught the monorail to the terminal my flight was going from to find it shut and empty. I found an AA member of staff who put me on the next available flight. This was leaving in 15 minutes from the %$£**£* terminal I had just caught the monorail from!!
So full running motion on I hurtled back to the terminal to find myself being the last to board the jam packed N843AA, 787-9 to LAX arriving around two and a half hours later.
Gasping for a beer it transpired that internal flights with AA do not supply alcohol!! So disappointingly a sprite was the drink of choice
Oh! and at DFW and Being dark when I left, I logged around half a dozen only! That went well!!
Getting out of LAX and to the hotel was a breeze with the hotel courtesy bus. This took me in about 2-3 minutes to the H Hotel Curio collection by Hilton
Checked in by 10pm (Been up 24 hours by now) and had a swift beer (8 dollars) in the bar! Oh that went down well let me tell you.
My room was on the 11th floor and having requested an airport facing room I wasn’t disappointed
Even in darkness you could capture movements on all four runways. This will do! The hotel is located very close to LAX and between the runways. The view was towards the ocean
Being shattered I just crashed out awaking in darkness around 5am on 26th.
Although being dark, armed with the excellent free Wi-Fi I and my “Have I seen it” app, captured a load of cargo movements. Interestingly they were landing on the South runways coming in over the ocean and taking off on the Northern runways towards the ocean.
Eventually once light, they reverted to landing and taking off on both runways North and South towards the Ocean
I was gobsmacked with the view from my room and after going down for a bit of breakfast (not included in the price) which with coffee came to around and expensive 16-18 dollars.
8CA69BFA-FAFB-44F5-9641-07D1FC57BF1F by Mick Childs, on FlickrC5F52A79-1EC7-4281-9EDE-3D5DF331F5A6 by Mick Childs, on FlickrAll the grief of the previous day was soon forgotten as I made my way to the outside terrace on the 12th floor. Wow! What a view! You can see the Ocean to one side, downtown LA to the other and the snow-capped mountains in the distance.
6897B907-B7F2-4C96-A31D-0FA870418A98 by Mick Childs, on FlickrBeing 70-80 degrees, I settled here for the next few hours just potting plane after plane. They were relentless.
These images of stuff landing on North runway
156A479E-DBE3-4831-B09A-7A59083AFD58 by Mick Childs, on Flickr6742BFE4-75A2-41AC-9DEE-CE045507755D by Mick Childs, on FlickrFFC45523-B947-4385-B390-85064BEC8E2A by Mick Childs, on Flickr545FEC91-E9BA-4FEE-8AC5-C19A69492CFC by Mick Childs, on FlickrView of South Runway
951D4E75-1C72-4272-B6AA-E23D347043E3 by Mick Childs, on FlickrBasically spent the next two days here. Awesome!
Now the hotel is not the cheapest and for three nights cost me around £150 per night. A pint of Bud or something similar was around $8 and an evening meal around 18-20 dollars. However the proximity to the airport and views more than made up for this.
I would also add that the roof terrace was only open to guests of the H Hotel Curio. Guests were given rooms in the upper floors and the lower part of the building was for the Homewood Suites. These guests could not gain access to the roof owing to the electronic room cards.
Worth bearing in mind if visiting as both use the same courtesy bus, foyer, bar and reception on the ground floor.
The only downside was that there was no bar/coffee shop on the terrace. However you could bring drinks food up from downstairs and some US spotters had Uber/pizza deliveries which they bought up to the terrace.
About 15minutes walk away along West Century Boulevard (away from the airport) was a Dennys which was good for breakfast and cheaper.
If you walked about 15 minutes behind the hotel you came to the famous In ‘n’ Out Burger and there are a few eateries/shops around here
View from In out Burger
23D96374-4B97-4934-8619-5B87FA35D7F6 by Mick Childs, on Flickr14E51402-D613-47DA-9C18-AD333A4B60DF by Mick Childs, on FlickrAfter making hundreds during my stay on the Monday morning at early o clock I took the hotel bus back to the airport and checked in for my flight to Chicago. A rammed N560UW 321 of AA took me to ORD in around 3hours.
Once at Chicago I had time for a meal, couple of pints and load of spotting from the piers (Airport Wi-Fi and flight trackers) and despite being here around four years ago still made bundles.
Eventually taking N778AN 777-223er back to LHR
3DA02227-AB26-4974-BBA7-0E023C71921F by Mick Childs, on FlickrAll in all tiring but brilliant and I would highly recommend the H Hotel Curio collection by Hilton. (Not to be confused by the Hilton Hotel further along by Dennys as previously mentioned.)
The roof terrace is as good as any thing I have ever come across.
It would be brilliant for the photographers. I am only armed with a Apple phone LOL!
I initially looked at staying at the Embassy suites on the South Side but having read the reviews and the cost I’m bloody glad I didn’t!
This was previously the spotter’s choice giving easy access to Clutters Park
As it happened despite planning on popping over to Clutters Park, I didn’t really need to. The only other place I visited was the In and Out take away location, well documented for spotters.
I could place the log on here but in essence there are loads of all of the major American airlines, Hawaiian, South American, (Viva Aerobus, Volaris, Aero Mexico, Avianca, loads of Cargo flights and Executive along with overflights.
Hope this is of some use for anyone thinking of visiting
Regards Mick
