If you are following along with the Twitter, then you already know I’m in Miami. South Beach to be more exact.

I kept it easy there, but the trip here was pretty rough. Early start from ONT to Denver, and that flight was pretty ok.

Until it was time to land.

By far, the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced in a large (Airbus a320) airplane. Ever.

Until I left Denver.

Holy crap. And, just for good measure, holy crap.

A collective gasp from all of the passengers on the full plane (again, the Airbus a320) 3 times from take off to cruising altitude. We shimmied to the left, shimmied to the right, rose, fell and, quite possibly, did 3 barrel rolls. My eyes were closed, so I’m not 100% sure on that last one. Since this was a flight to Orlando, there were more than a few kids. Some were scared quiet, some were excited like it was their first trip on a roller coaster and 1, the poor girl sitting behind me, got a bit sick. Bru. Tal.

The woman next to me started by patting herself on the back during all of this which I thought was interesting. Until she ended up clutching her husband for dear life. Imagine 10-15 minutes of this. Ugh. It wasn’t any fun that’s for sure.

I get to Orlando without incident and, if I might say, that airport sucks. It’s currently in a state of tear down/rebuild which is the only reason I can figure for there not being any signs that should have directed me to the correct shuttle/train thing to get to my gate. I didn’t miss my flight, but it was close.

Embrarer 120 Turbo was the equipment from Orlando to Miami. I had seat 4a, which means nobody on either side of me, right at the wing. And, for UK Paul, that was the best flight of the day. Yes, on a plane with propellors at 18K feet, smooth as butter. A bit loud, but that’s to be expected. But it was a nice way to end a very long day of travel.

Or would have been had my bags made the journey from Orlando to Miami with me.

Also would have been nice if the server was up at all yesterday. For those of you inconvenienced by that, I am truly sorry. Something about fsck not running. I certainly hope whatever the problem that has been plaguing the server all week is fixed ’cause I really need it to work for the next 12 days or so.

Time to get cleaned up as best I can, get my MINI and see what’s going on for the rest of the day. And, maybe another cup of coffee. Not sure yet.

10 Responses to “Ventilation (1,000)”

1. chris Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 7:05 am

   So, no direct flights from california to MIA? Sounds like a rough day!

2. db Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 7:14 am

   I looked high and low, from multiple airports and to get from Southern CA to Miami requires at least 1 transfer. In my case, it required 2.

   The time was about the same. Anytime I travel to the east coast I can count on it being 1 full day. That’s the cost of travel. Beats driving!

3. paul Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 7:36 am

   My recollection of Orlando some 6 or 7 years ago was that the whole place looked in a state of teardown/rebuild.

   Congrats on the 1000th post, btw.

4. C4 Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 8:28 am

   Strong turbulence coming out of Denver is not uncommon. But what you described was pretty rough stuff. I wish you could have filmed it.

   Any explanation coming out of the flight deck?

5. db Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 8:34 am

   On the flight out there wasn’t until we were past the really rough stuff. If I had to guess, the pilots were pretty busy keeping the plane in the air.

   However, I knew to expect some based on the flight in and reports over channel 9 (I love that feature on United).

   I’ve flown out of Denver before I knew to expect some bumps and shakes, but this was really bad.

6. C4 Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 8:38 am

   I just think airlines sometimes take worthless risks in order to meet up schedules. It almost sounds like the plane got caught up on a microburst.

7. dbmini.us » MTTS Update: I’m in Miami Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 9:33 am

   [...] more about my adventure to the east coast from SoCal here. Posted in MTTS, video — by db on 06/13/08 Comment [...]

8. JR Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 11:17 am

   Sounds horrible.

   What happened to JetBlue from Long Beach to Ft Lauderdale?

9. db Says:
   June 13th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

   Would have been ok except that Long Beach is a little more than 2 hours from my house. I don’t drive that far for an airport unless I’m going international

10. John W Says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    and you didn’t swing by to say hi? I’m only 30 minutes from DIA

    Sorry about the bumps.

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