First time on an RJ...
 

All Barbie-jet jokes aside, is there anything special I need to know when flying on these things? My father and I are doing PHL-CLE-DAY and return in April for a father-son trip to the USAF Museum. There's only two relevant questions I can think of:

1. Is a 40-minute connection in CLE doable without checked bags? Time window is 759A-840A.

2. About the checked bag thing: can you do 2 carry-ons on a small jet? I usually travel with a mainline-acceptable duffle and a Canon Gadget Bag for my camera setup.

Any advice appreciated.

You probaly will have to gate check the duffel

there really are no overhead bins to speak of. The bins are only on the 2 seat side of the plane (seats are 3 across as 1-2). They arent deep nor tall. So think of storing a winter jacket or a something the size of a purse at best.

Anything that wont fit under the seat in front of You, will be taken away at the Gate and returned to You at the Gate when you land. At least you wont have to wait an hour at Baggage Claim.

As for connecting flights, no sweat if you are flying into CLE also on a RJ as you will come into the same concourse as you are departing. If you are arriving in or connecting to a Mainline jet then you will have to deal with 2 different concourses and a very long way between them going up and down a very long escalator on each end.

My connection is RJ to RJ both ways, so that part is solved. And gate checking is cool...40 min same concourse sounds OK too. I've come into CLE, but not on CO and it was about 10 years ago. No recollection whatsoever of the airport.

That connection time is fine here in Cleveland, even from mainline to regional. However, please note that there are a handful of RJ flights that use the C gates in addition to Terminal D.

Enjoy Wright-Patt!

Thanks, I'm thinking that I will. I did 6 1/2 years USAF, and I'm a photo and aircraft freak, so despite the company (my father isn't, shall we say, the life of the party) I thnk it'll be quite the good time. I also listen to the museum's lecture series on iTunes...really good stuff for a free podcast.

Xb-70
 

No prob on the connection. Yes on the gate check of bags.

Superb museum at W-P. ^ ^ They have one of the last remaining XB-70's supersonic bomber. We only made 3 of them, one crashed into a photo-chase plane. Where's the third one??

Be sure to put the Udvar-Hazy branch of the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum (at IAD):-: :-: on your list of fantastic places to visit. They have the prototype Boeing 707, whose test pilot flew a slow roll at a Seattle airshow, over a group of potential buyers. :D Boeing management was apoplectic, but the buyers loved it, and bought 707's! They also have the Rockwell Space Shuttle Enterprise, and the B-36 Enola Gay. I was priveleged to sit in the cockpit of Enola Gay when she was at Silver Hill. She saved my uncle's life. In 1945, he was a 19 year old Navy landing Craft coxwain, slated for the first wave to invade the Japanese homeland. He'd of been toast. Cannonfodder.

B7

How do you mean yes? Yes, in that I will be gate checking something duffle-sized?

USAF Museum's fact sheet says that only two were built, and FWIW, Enola Gay was a B-29. I'm proud to say that I own Gen. Tibbett's autograph.

The B-36 was famous for entirely something else...B-36 had ten engines, hence the tagline "Six turning/four burning" because of its having six props and four jets.

Udvar-Hazy is very much on my list, but I'm waiting to do a DC trip until Natural History comes out of renovation, which IIRC is this summer.

A slight correction to your post. The Enola Gay is actually a B-29. It like the other B-29's was manufactured at the Martin plant very near here (Omaha). The headquarters of the US Strategic Command, which oversees our nuclear strike capabilities is headquartered here now. The museum formerly associated with the air force base tried for a long time to get the Enola Gay brought back here from the Smithsonian before Udvar was built. Previously they only had the cockpit on display at the Air and Space museum. As for the B-36, it debuted after World War II as the replacement for the B-29 as a nuclear delivery vehicle. Like the XB-70 they are incredibly rare today. There is one B-36 here, one at Wright Patterson, and one or two in other places. That is it. The plane didn't last long and was quickly phased out with the advent of the B-52's which the air force still uses today.

Who better to comment on all things B-29 than a guy named "Mr. Nuke"? Slightly OT but admittedly hilarious.

Wright-Patt is a great way to spend a free day. I enjoyed the Air Force One 707 (the Kennedy plane.) Also they have on display one of Pres. Eisenhower's Cessna planes, painted in Air Force One livery. ^

The other 707 is on display at the Reagan Library, and it's a hell of a story how they dragged that airframe along I-5 and up a mountain to get it into its enclosure in Simi Valley. Not only looking fwd to W-P, but I also get two new routes and two new jet types on my FlightMemory.

what's strange about this is that I called CO the other day, to ask about this, because it's only my second time on RJ, and the guy on the phone told me that the 145 had enough room for anything I would want to bring aboard...I guess ppl here know better

Yeah, it technically does, because anything that doesn't fit under the seat in front of you or in the overhead goes directly in the cargo hold ;)

Is there a term for where you leave your bag at the end of the jetway for an RJ flight and it's returned at the end of the jetway upon landing? When I think of a "gate check" for baggage, I think of it being converted from "carry on" status to "checked baggage" status, getting tagged to your final destination, and retrieved by you at the baggage carousel.

To the OP, one thing you should make sure you think about and that we should discuss here is the extra time needed to wait for you bag on the jetway for your RJ connection. It will add another 5-15 minutes of waiting time. You may feel more comfortable checking your bag through to your destination to make sure you don't have to wait for your bag and can just run to your connecting flight.

I'm sure there are lots of opinions on this.