Paint Horse

This trip from DFW to CVG and back had multiple purposes. First, was to attend the OSP Expo held at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The second purpose was, since I was so close, to visit the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Well, actually the trip to see the museum was the whole point. Visiting the conference was just a good way to meet my requirement to attend such a thing now and again for work while not having to pay to visit the museum. This made the cost of the trip come out to zero dollars and zero miles used. Third , I earned a few miles in order to keep the account active. Lastly, I flew on a RJ for the first time.

The main service from DFW to CVG is on American Eagle using the ER4 an Embraer 145 50 passenger RJ. This was my first time on a RJ. I must say it was a little different from my last trip which was in the nose of a BA 747.

Clearing security at each end was a concern as having used my employer’s travel agency for the booking they used my name as it appears in their records. This does not match my driver’s license as the first name is shorter and a suffix is added to the employer’s HR record. The TSA agent pointed this out, but let me through. The main security check was everything off and out. This was my first time through the enclosed scanner. I do not understand the fuss over this device. It was quick and easy.

While waiting at the gate I was reminded again why Southern people find Yankees irritating. Two of them spent at least 30 minutes on the phone complaining. I do not mean they were conversing with someone using the phone. I mean they talked nonstop. I assume the people at the other end just laid the phones down on their desks. The irritating part is the unfortunate accent such people always seem to have. That along with the elevated volume induced me to buy an aspirin before I boarded.

My RJ observations include the following. First, boarding was slightly delayed due to gum having to be removed from a seat. It may have been my seat as I found gum stuck beside the seat pocket after I boarded. The aircraft was in otherwise good condition. Boarding was by Group 1, those with status, then Group 2, all the rest of us. Bags were gate checked. This is the first time I have done this. All in all it works quite well. Here is the little guy at rest.



I selected 11A as the one seat side looked like a better choice than the two seat side since I was traveling alone. This was as near the front as the employer’s travel agency website would allow me to select. It worked out fine as it was right at the leading edge of the wing. The exit row was right behind me. The seat was wide enough despite the narrow body of the aircraft. The legroom was much better than I expected, but then I do have very short legs.



The aircraft was full which surprised me greatly. I had planned on moving toward the front of the aircraft at one time.

The takeoff roll was really, really long. Those poor little engines must have been panting by the time we achieved flight. Despite being toward the back the engine noise was not that high. These little airplanes are nice.

As we climbed out I could see how widespread the drought is in Texas. Everything was brown for miles and miles. I am always struck by how the entire US is composed of small rectangle fields.



Flight time was about two hours. Once we crossed the Mississippi River the green returned to the landscape. Descent into CVG, which is across the Ohio River in Kentucky, revealed how different the landscape is in that part of the world compared to the DFW area. Kentucky is a pretty state from the air.

The well behaved passengers for the most part did not jump-up to stand around in the aisle until we actually arrived at the gate. On leaving the aircraft the gate checked bags appeared fairly rapidly.

On exiting the terminal I boarded the National Car Rental shuttle to their lot. I found out once there that as a new Emerald Club member all I had to do was jump in any car on the row and drive off. I selected the one I was standing beside which was a very sporty looking Dodge something or other that must have had a rubber band for an engine. It is a good thing that it looked fast, because it sure did not move out very quickly.

The drive from CVG to downtown Cincinnati was about 15 minutes or so. Once again the difference in terrain became apparent as I actually saw hillsides along the road in Kentucky, then a sign that said steep grade as I descended down to the bridge over the river. The grade was impressive for someone who lives on the prairie. The view of Cincinnati as you approach the bridge is very nice. Downtown Cincinnati is larger than I thought it would be based on the population.

The Hyatt is on the river edge of downtown Cincinnati near the Duke Energy Center and the two ballparks on the river. The last Hyatt I stayed in was in Dubai for a few hours before a 3am BA 747 nose ride. Just as the RJ does not compare to the 747, the Cincinnati Hyatt is not the same as the one in Dubai even though the price was within a hundred or so of it. The hotel and room are both perfectly adequate, just unimpressive.







Compared to Dubai.







I found the elevator in the hotel to be a challenge. The sign by the elevators says the room key card is required to select a floor above 4 where the guest rooms are. I pressed the button for the elevator while looking around for the slot for the card. No slot was to be seen. The elevator arrived. In I went to find no slot for the card. I stepped out. No slot. I stepped in. No slot. I stepped out. No slot. Fortunately, a young lady walked up so I followed her in the elevator. She promptly went to the panel on the other side of the door and inserted her key. I said, oh I couldn’t find the slot for the card. I am sure she was thinking poor old thing, lost in this new technology driven world. What can I say? I assumed the slot would be on the same side of the elevator as the sign talking about the slot.

Now I am sure Cincinnati is a lovely place in which to live. Cincinnatians are no doubt proud of their city. However, when the only highlight the conference brochure can find to mention as a point of interest in the city is a single fountain I have to wonder what the city fathers have been doing since 1788. The Adams Fountain is very nice looking I must say. See for yourself.



I also consulted the publications the visitor’s bureau and Hyatt provided. They did not have much more to say on the subject. The local food seems to consist of some sort of Yankee chili. Reading this brought back to mind the time when I went with the parents to eat at the house of my father’s new boss. I assume in order to fit in with the new surroundings the bosses’ wife fixed chili for dinner. Being young and unaware of the niceties of society when I was led through the kitchen to observe this dish we were about to eat I exploded with the child’s version of what in the hell is that crap? Therefore, I did not retrieve the car from the hotel valet in order to sample this local dish invented by someone originally from Greece. It all just seemed too out of the mainstream for a Texas boy. It is interesting that the population of the city has been falling for the most part over the last few decades. This seems strange with so many large companies being based in Cincinnati. Then again the local news said Chiquita was looking to move out due to the lack of flights out of CVG. The weather was very nice, especially compared to the record setting heat in Texas.

I had forgotten how noisy cities can be. The only sound I hear at my place is, well nothing. There are no sounds. I don’t count the occasional coyote howl. I was also struck by the apparent lack of people in the buildings between the hotel and the river. I never saw any lights or movement day or night above the ground floors.

The conference that was the stated reason for the trip was on the Outside Plant. This is basically all of the telecommunications equipment buried under the ground or hanging on poles. As I wrote a chapter on this for a book we use where I teach I thought it might be useful to see what was new in the field. I found out a few interesting things that I will add to the lecture notes. Conferences like this are not the most exciting as they are populated by construction workers, nerds, and engineers.

With the conference over the real reason for the trip became the order of business. I requested the rubber band Dodge from the valet service, checked out of the hotel, and buzzed north to Dayton. Traffic on the way north was not too bad despite several construction and police slowdowns. Ohioians seem to drive just fine. I was able to easily identify what suburb all of the rich executives that work at those big corporations based in Cincinnati live in. It is West Chester. The major indicators included the presence of an Ikea store and a Mercedes-Benz dealership along I75.

The directions to the Air Force museum were quite clear. I arrived to see this.



I spent several wonderful hours examining every aircraft in the place. This is a very well done facility. I spent most of my time with my favorite aircraft.

Who can identify it first?



I still recall gazing up as those huge beasts growled through the sky over my house when I was a little fellow. I even watched Strategic Air Command before I left on the trip to get ready for the experience.

A few observations concerning the planes include:

The Peashooter really is really small.



The Japanese did not quite seem to get the point of folding wings.



The 88mm artillery piece was smaller than I thought it was.



The entire front structure of the JU-88 is nothing but plexiglass.



It is too cool to actually touch Bockscar. Yeah I know what the signs say. What can I say? I am a human. We have to touch things to connect with them.



Those drones we use today are really big.

I also touched every part of the B-36 I could get away with. So there.

Finding nothing left to do in Ohio or Kentucky that time would allow I arrived at CVG several hours before the flight. I returned the rubber band engine Dodge Avenger that evidently gets 70 miles per gallon to the National Car Rental people. I say this as I put 200 miles on it and the gas gauge never left the F mark. To be sure it was full I added three gallons.

At the terminal, much like Miami, I discovered the only departure monitors are hidden on a side wall at the far end of the check-in counters. Why do they hide these things? I see what Chiquita is talking about as only four departures were listed. Seeing that I was indeed in the correct terminal I lined up at the end of a long security line. Unlike DFW the CVG TSA agent made no mention of my boarding pass name not matching my driver’s license. Of the two scanning lines I managed to select the longest and the one that would soon grind to a halt. I selected this line because the group of five in front of me seemed to be well traveled, well organized, and friendly. My selection criteria was faulty as the second one of the group managed to have his cellphone slide off a pile in the bin to a spot which jammed the machine. If there had been a small child nearby I was going to suggest they have him crawl in and get it. Based on what happened later, we should have done just that, and then left the little creep in there as a permanent part of the mechanism. After several minutes of back and forth with no results they began inserting my line one at a time into the other line. Fortunately, everyone was in a good mood. So the delay was not a major factor.

Having two hours to wait until boarding I decided to put on the Bose headset with some languorous classical selections to drown out the loud volume phone calls that always seem to occur in all airport waiting areas. That along with The Education of Henry Adams was enough to occupy and hour or so. I do hate these narrow, low window concourse designs. They are always ugly, crowded, and noisy.



As the boarding time of 6:30 approached and no aircraft was to be seen. I looked at the screen to see that the departure time was now 7:45 instead of 7:20. As time went on with only this sight of the ramp to be seen I began to doubt this estimate as well.



I asked the gate agent what flight number we were waiting for. Flight Aware told me that it was indeed delayed to a new arrival time of 7:32. Sure enough right at 7:30 the aircraft pulled up to the gate.

At this point the chaos of the title ensued as the alarm system went off. This system consists of a really bright strobe light, a shrieking piercing obnoxious buzzer, and someone announcing something. I assume the voice is telling us what to do. The problem with this system is you are blinded by the light. The only sound you hear is buzz, buzz, blah, blah, buzz, buzz, blah, blah. The buzzes and the blahs are perfectly timed so you cannot understand what is being blahed at you. Based on the weather radar I had been also checking in case that was the cause of the delay - isn’t technology wonderful - I decided it must be a thunderstorm with a possible tornado approaching CVG. As I stood up I noticed the plane was at the ramp, but the jetbridge was stopped just a few feet from the door. I am ashamed to say my first thought was I sure hope this airplane does not land upside down on the other side of the airport. If it does I will never get out of here. Then I thought, oh yeah, I do hope the passengers get off first.

As everyone else was moving away from the glassed in area I decided to follow. Being the always planning ahead FTer I stopped by the restroom just in case this took a while. On the way out of the restroom one of the gate agents, planning ahead as well, came in. He told all of us to just stay in here as security was clearing the terminal to rescreen all of the passengers, which could take hours. He said the airport police might not bother to check the johns. So just stand back from the entrance and be quiet. He advised a card game or something was in order while we waited. As he walked out he looked down at the floor and also advised we play standing up.

I quickly assessed the situation to ascertain the following:

Who looked like they had plenty of cash on them?

What was their tell?

Who had some cards?

I then recalled that I do not play poker, I cannot even play Solitaire by myself, I was likely the only one with a wad of cash, and I could not bluff my way out of anything.

About the time everyone else finished this same process, easily identifying me as the sucker in the room, the gate agent popped back in to tell us that it was a false alarm. Some kid had punched a security alarm button just to see what would happen. See, I knew we should have feed a kid to the scanner machine. As we all streamed back to the gate, the arriving passengers leaving our plane all looked very confused.

Now do not tell me American Eagle cannot turn an aircraft around in a timely manner. With the last flash of the strobe light the gate agent said; Welcome to flight 2845 service to DFW we are boarding all of our blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, thanks for flying American Eagle, and get your ... on board right now cause we’re hauling butt out of here. Gate check tags were flying, overweight businessmen were huffing and puffing, OJ was jumping over the thusly tagged bags dropped in jetway, but I do believe they boarded, stocked, and loaded that sucker in 10 minutes the flat. It is a good thing we didn’t have any children or old people on the flight. I do not think they would have survived the stampede. I would not have been surprised to find the end of the JetBridge resting on top of the embassy in Saigon they were moving so fast.

After the excitement of leaving SGN – I mean CVG – I fully expected the flight to be a zoo as well. However, the pilots taxied out, gave it the gas, and off we went. There was a little turbulence as we crossed over the nearby front. An advantage to being in an RJ during turbulence is that you can place a hand on each side of the wall to ceiling transition to balance yourself. There is no way to bang your head because it can’t be more than a couple of inches from any surface. Once on the backside the cool air smoothed out. As we flew along the lightning show was impressive. I decided to begin the music playback with the 1812 Overture. As we neared DFW a big orange moon appeared to the sound of Joshua Bell with Song to the Moon.

In sum, while a nice city with friendly people, I believe I have seen all of Cincinnati I need to see. The thing that turned out to be the most entertaining part of Cincinnati was their airport, which isn’t even in the same state.

Nanook

Good trip report. Glad you posted it because I didn't even know the Air Force Museum existed. Husband would love to go for a visit there, so I know to where our next mileage run will be.

Loved the picture of the Convair B-36 Peacemaker.

Paint Horse

You will enjoy it very much. All I did was look at the aircraft inside and outside on the ramp at a steady pace. It took me about four hours just for this. If you read everything, sit in the cockpits, and so on, you could spend the entire day there. The only non-aircraft things I did were the gift shop, the Quonset huts, and the control tower.

peersteve

Well, hey, welcome to our everyday world of riding RJs to various midwestern cities.....as you experienced, the one-seat side is the only positive on the cramped, bumpy ride....plus all the uncertainties which come with non-mainline service

About Cinci itself..... since it dates to 1788, it's sights may be more faded and subtle......from that oh-so-generic Hyatt, did you notice the river span which looks like a model of the Brooklyn Bridge? It was engineer Roebling's previous design. Within walking distance of your hotel/convention would be the contrasts of the architecture and collections of the new Contemporary Arts center, and the Taft family museum....... plus, after you had your fill of "chili", Izzy's Jewish deli downtown offers a delicious change......

Glad you enjoyed the planes in Dayton..... how would you compare the collection to the Smithsonian hangar outside IAD? www.nasm.si.edu/udvarhazy

Paint Horse

Yes, I could see two of the bridges from the hotel room as I was on the 20th floor. Very nice architecture on the bridges and some of the downtown buildings. The time of day I had available to wander was limited as I was on my employer's dime.

As to food, when I travel I am looking for the food that represents the area. That is somewhat peculiar to that locale. I should have been adventurous enough to try the chili, but it just brought back too many childhood memories. This is why I try to bring the wife along, as she will force me into these sorts of things.

I have yet to make it out to the remote Smithsonian site. The only one I have seen is the one along the mall. One of the main attractions to the Air Force Museum is how near to the aircraft you can get, thus the do not touch signs.

peersteve

.....then you will very much like the huge Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy hangar exhibition hall about 10 mins from IAD.....aircraft from all eras within an arms length.....check it out on some of the aviation enthusiasts websites..... last time I was there, hardly needed to read the descriptive signs, since there was often a retired pilot (military and other) standing nearby who was giving expert descriptions of a plane as in informal docent! You'll love the place.....even if you have to fly an RJ to IAD. (You can fly-in, then just taxi from airport to the hangar exhibit, or the Smithsonian may run a shuttle to/from IAD) www.nasm.si.edu/udvarhazy

Paint Horse

I was just plotting this trip last night. The major problem is the flight times mean I will have to stay overnight the night before. Then find a way from the hotel there, then there to Dulles.