Thanks for the reminder! ^

sounds a lot like LHR to me. only difference is have to walk a couple of miles at LHR to get to the lines.

Not quite sure which bit of my post you were referring to ...

Entering the UK is, obviously, fairly easy for me because I'm British. You may have very different experiences, I've seen the lines, and I have 'met' some of the totally charmless people who populate the desks at Immigration!

The UK Border is severely damaged by the influence of the European Union, and the ability for people to move freely within its boundaries. I firmly believe that God put the English Channel there for a good reason ;)

<cough> We don't have groups of 'day workers' on the curb in the UK. They will be found at the nearest benefits office.

However ... the BIG difference is that IAD was built somewhere with SPACE. Room to expand, build more runways, carve more highways and [eventually] link to the Metro. Heathrow has NOWHERE to go. As I kid I used to cycle to LHR for plane-spotting ... it was modern and exciting and it could cope with the aircraft of the 50s and 60s. But it is fenced in by the suburbs, the reservoirs and the existing main highways. It worked once, it only just works now ,,, and there's no way surface rail can get there, and going underground is expensive.

so why do they not build another big functioning airport with space someplace else. i have flown into LGW a couple of times. the experience there was not a great improvement over lhr.

iad was built as a replacement for dca, and would be, were it not for congress.

In the Romanian language IAD is the word the underworld. Quite a few times when I passed through the airport, I felt that I was in the underworld, especially in the UA terminal.

...and every voter who lives inside the Beltway. :)

and at least 2 miles away from the potomac.

have some friends that live in north arlington, near the parkway. although further from the airport than my house, the plane noise is worse. i think maybe the planes on the north outbound flight path do not get as high as they do on the south path.

i also do not know the percentage of people in the dc area that use dca. most in my neighborhood cannot get direct flights to their destinations, and use iad.

I think that is because the flights taking off from the south can do a mild turn and get out over the river in such a manner as to not be a problem to Old Town and points south of it.

The takeoffs to the north have no place to go for a noise abatement heading that is not heavily populated until they get well past Northern VA and DC into far suburban MD.

But those of us from inside the distance limit who slog into the area with destinations inside the Beltway would never think of IAD. And, as you said, that includes so many government types on the way to DC to whom IAD means nothing at all.

I live in Arlington myself, and the plane noise doesn't bother me at all. But I suspect that's not a contrarian opinion here.

(FWIW, our house also sits underneath the flight path of many military aircraft completing Arlington Cemetery flyovers. Even an old DC-9 can't approach the thunder of an F-15 several hundred feet overhead.)

I don't feel like B (or the part of A that used to be part of B) is underworldish at all. The rest of A, sure.

doesn't bother my friend charles either. he just takes off his hearing aids.

if a 500ft flyover of an f-15 does not bother you, do you even notice it? do they fly over, or coast over?

" Armed with noise monitors and diaries, they have recorded more than 120 decibels as F-18 Super Hornets pass over their homes."


"110 Decibels.....Regular exposure of more than 1 minute risks permanent hearing loss."

dulles airport code
 

It,s Aboustley Dreadful
flew into Dulles(t) on september 10th on KLM 651 , 2 Hours to get to immagration officers desk . &15 yes 15 empty booths not in operation !!
there are signs in baggage claim to tell you that arrivals can take up to 2hours !!!
the arrival &departure area (intrenational ) has had a realmodel &it still takes 2 hours to get thruogh .
Simple answer (but not convienent )
use Detroit as your first point of entry then a connection to DULLEST
Has anybody asked for their flight to IAD to be confirmed only to be asked if they are going to Huoston IAH ? :mad::td::confused:

Unless they've lived there since the early 1960s, they knew what they were getting into when they bought the place. I can't be sympathetic...

FWIW, I live outside the Beltway and I'd rather use DCA....

What you are suggesting is not logical. Even if it does take two hours to get through arrivals at Dulles (something I have never experienced), the added time of making a connection in Detroit plus the increased risk of further delays due to missed connections weather problems, etc. doesn't make sense to me.

DTW is a breeze. Probably the best international connecting airport of all in the US. I like it and use it all the time.