Back to Dulles.
After taking some architecture pictures of IAD, I got bored and headed for the diamond lane. After getting a snooty look for having Star G, I had the audacity to have my film hand scanned.
I know. Asking a worker to conduct a manual scan! I’m actually making the Friends of Kip Hawley Society (tm pending) to do some work. Eventually I finally had someone get the magic paper and wipe the film, putting the magic paper in the magic scanner to say the film is clean.
The joy of the TSA. Peak time, Frequent Travellers lane, and 1 station open. Express screening my cute back side.
As I was in no rush to get to my gate, I took the travelators over to A/B dock and had a nice walk around the terminal. What struck me was how nice and organised it looked – in comparison that quite frankly that’s an embarrassment known as the C/D Concourse.
But eventually I got bored, and went back to the main terminal before taking another moonbuggy to the D gates, then walking the length of D and C to C7 (it’s called exercise – something I’m lacking in sometimes)
C7 Red Carpet Club
After presenting myself, I went into the RCC (no drink chits offered) and had a walk round.
Well how can I put this politely? This is a MAJOR comedown from the Star Alliance Gold Lounge at LHR!
My home for a few hours at the RCC
Apart from the paid for bar, the lack of fresh options (amazingly, carrot sticks, celery and baby tomatoes with pots of ranch salad dressing counts as a snack, with prepacked cheese and crackers – and shortbread to sink a small ship), lets put it like this – I wouldn’t pay for this lounge if I had to. The club itself was clean, and looked fine, but compared with the ambience of the LHR lounge or even the PHL Envoy lounge, there is defiantly a LOT of room for improvement here.
Food 
the best I could find in the end
If I was to compare it to a lounge, it would be the Gate 14 Diamond Club lounge at LHR – without the fancy coffee machine, alcohol on tap and cold drink selection. Heck – even the D8 lounge is a LOT better with the self select soft drinks.
Just… disappointing.
I then made a classic class 1 mistake. Instead of it being C dock – it had changed to D dock.
Sigh. After a global announcement that the bar was closing at 21:00 (
), I decided not to move until 21:40 because despite the disappointment, I was rather comfortable here.
Eventually, I made my way over to the gate area, and watched the Red Carpet lice fill up quickly. Me? I was stuck in the economy land waiting for Zone 1 to be called.
Gate area - full of Red Carpet lice
Eventually, duty free was picked up and boarding for mere Star Gold’s called, and I was on my plane for the ride home.
United Airlines 924, 10/03/09
Boeing 777-200 Seat 18A (was 40J)
3677 miles flown, 3677 earned.
E+ Buyup made ($79), Channel 9 Enabled
The pictures
Another flight, another new class of aircraft (and I'm amazed I've avoided them for so long) it's time to try the United’s 777 product.
A walk through the business section gave a hint for what was to come – the seats were the old recliners, which meant as soon as I passed through to economy plus, the lovely chevron red/blue/orange/grey seats were in full evidence. Thankfully with the E+ configuration of 36”, this was going to be a pleasant flight.
Waiting for pushback
E+ Space
Boarding was completed on scheduled, and loaded with a London based crew, after a short taxi, once again we were up in the skies, tracking across the east coast, up to the Labrador coast, and the long way round to the united kingdom.
Takeoff
Today, as I had another London based crew, there was a bit of humour going on and banter with the customers
Up and flying over the East Coast
An initial drink run commenced shorly after take off.
Drink!
followed by A dinner run with a choice of chicken or pasta. Or to quote "It could be teryaki chicken - Well I think it is..."
Dinner
Lets tear this down: The rice, Soggy. The Chicken, not that bad. The projectile (roll), soft. The lettuce, firm, The oat thing - I still have that to eat...
Not a bad meal per say, but I am getting annoyed with UA for not putting a proper desert on in Y, and instead resorting to a snack/biscuit thing. It just smacks of cheapness.
But pretty soon after this, I sucummed to sleep. After a while I woke up, and saw one of my favourite views of the world - dawn in the air.
Dawn
Pretty soon it was time for breakfast - I was excepting the swiss cheesse and turkey ham roll... but shock and horror.. it was something different.. Yoghurt and Banana bread
Breakfast
Oh dear. As I'm not a yoghurt lover, this was pretty much a disappointment. However an organe juice and coffee helped me perk up before landing.
As we got closer to London, it was possible to see the world contrailling above us, and we slowly begun our decent.
High Contrails
Eventually we entered a stack, lowering ourselves over London,
London Baby YEAH! - well the south of London anyway.
Eventually, after 1 loop, we made a gentle decent into LHR on the opposite of the runway where this adventure begun, and started the long taxi to T1.
Obligatory A380 shot - its the QF one - there was also a SQ A380 on stand on T3.
Eventually, we docked at T1, and everyone disembarked.
My ride at T1
After the usual hike from the UA dock, I made immigration to find IRIS operational, and after one attempt, made it through successfully. Eventually, my luggage was spat out, and then it was a Heathrow Connect, a taxi ride, and a run for a Chiltern Railways service to Birmingham, another taxi, and finally - my front door.
Home
I'm a bit tired - my thoughts to come