Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Flight Report: Flying CLT to Los Angeles LAX on US Airways

My brother and I got a great surprise from our dad this year. About a month ago, there was a mention that we might be going to LA for spring break, but nothing was certain. After about a week, he told us that things probably wouldn't work out to come to Los Angeles, which was a little disappointing  In the meantime, he planned out LA more without telling us. A week ago,  we found out that in just a few day we were due to fly out to Los Angeles!

 The plan was for my brother and me to fly on US Airways through Charlotte International Airport (CLT) and meet our dad at LAX. He was already here for some business. This was to be the first time I'd flown with my younger brother without parents. We were pretty excited!

 Yesterday, on Monday, we got ready and headed out the the airport in the later afternoon for our first flight from RIC to CLT. Sitting at the gate, I was pretty surprised to see a special livery A319 heading towards us. It was the US Airways Piedmont themed A319! I knew it was something special for Richmond when the gate agents, ground crew, and some nearby pilots began to take some photos. 

 US Airways Flight 1047 Information:

  • Flight: Richmond International Airport (RIC) to Charlotte International Airport (CLT)
  • Flight Time: 1 hour (shown in a 57 second time-lapse below)
  • Aircraft: Special Retro-Livery (Piedmont) A319-100 N744P
  • Seats: 17E and 17F

After our initial ascent, I decided it would be cool to try attaching my GoPro Hero 3 via the suction cup mount to the aircraft window for a time-lapse video. As expected, the flight attendent did ask what I had set up, but after explaining, it was no problem luckily. In the following video, you can see the final result of the video (a full time-lapse video of the entire flight): 


After a quick layover in Charlotte, we boarded our next flight, this time to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). 

US Airways Flight 39 Information: 
  • Flight: Charlotte International Airport (CLT) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
  • Flight Time: 4 Hours, 45 Minutes
  • Aircraft: 7,000th Airbus, an A321-200 N552UW
  • Seats: 31A and 31B

All went pretty well on that flight, the beginning was very turbulent, which kept things interesting. Sitting in the middle seat was a bit rough, but nothing too bad. I hooked up my laptop with GoGo Internet and was ready to go. We got lucky, arriving in LAX about 30 minutes later, but were disappointed to find out from the captain that we were not allowed into a gate until our scheduled arrival time. 


We walked out of the terminal area, and met our dad at the rental car and began our hour long drive to the Huntington Beach Hyatt Regency in Orange County (great resort by the way!)

Thanks for reading, more to come soon!
Swayne Martin
Martins Aviation / From Private to Professional Pilot
Twitter: @MartinsAviation




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4 comments:

  1. UnknownMarch 13, 2013 at 1:25 PM

    Welcome to Los Angeles. You are in Orange County specifically. Just a note from a local: some OC people find offense when visitors think that OC is part of LA. If you're able to, you should try to do some flying while you're here. KSNA is a short 15 minute drive from Huntington Beach if there's no traffic. The flight school I got my private pilot in is based there, let me know and I can give you the school's name.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Swayne MartinMarch 14, 2013 at 10:12 AM

      Thanks so much! Yep I got lucky and did some flying yesterday, found in the new post here: http://martinsaviation.blogspot.com/2013/03/flying-over-southern-california-with.html

      Thanks for reading and commenting,
      Swayne Martin

      Delete
  2. capnauxMarch 19, 2013 at 2:41 PM

    So cool you got to ride on "US"! I've flown that CLT-LAX flight in the A321, but unfortunately I wasn't on that day!

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    Replies
    1. Swayne MartinMarch 19, 2013 at 6:06 PM

      Very cool! Have you ever flown a special livery A319/20/21? Have you ever by chance flown these exact planes?

      So cool!
      Swayne Martin

      Delete

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Many Thanks, Happy Flying,
Swayne Martin

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