Long layover in Belém

Belém, April 2025

I was not happy seeing a six-day layover in Belém in my roster. I tried to swap it but I didn't have any luck. I already visited almost all the main spots of interest in the city and being away from home for almost six days is too much for me these days.

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Sunset: Lisboa-Belém

Aircraft: Airbus A321-251NX (A321LR) CS-TXJ "Bartolomeu de Gusmão"

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Night out in Belém

With nothing else left to do in the city, all you can do is to enjoy the hotel's pool in between the frequent short periods of heavy rainfall, enjoy the good food and the several places to go out at night.

The first picture on the top is from Zebra bar, a small place where we had a DJ playing music; second photo on the top is from BalacoolBar; and the two photos at the bottom are from the place I enjoyed the most although it was a little bit overcrowded: "O Velho Moinho". At least the night I was there, one could be entertained with a nice live music display, playing several artists/bands like Pearl Jam.

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Eating out in Belém

This portrait of a reinterpreted Mona Lisa/La Gioconda is from Roxy Bar, a nice restaurant with awesome food. I definitely recommend it. They have two different venues. I went to the one in Umarizal.

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Hotel views

Although it certainly has many interesting spots, Belém is definitely not a city we can call beautiful. The urban planning is a total mess or inexistent. They will be hosting the COP30 (an important climate conference) later this year and they are trying to improve the city for it.

This was the view from my room's balcony:

In the short term, I hope to bring here a post showing some of the main highlights of Belém (including the amazing Theatro da Paz) from a previous layover last year.

Return flight from Prague

Inflight, November 2017

After a nice layover in Prague it was time to return home early in the morning. The nice thing about being an aviation enthusiast is that the trip doesn't end the moment you arrive at the airport to take your return flight. The flight itself can be pretty enjoyable. Some years ago I wrote about a flight from Helsinki to Lisboa calling it the "Moon's sunset". This time it was the same scene.

This was the typical cold breakfast served in business class by that time:

Already descending towards Lisbon...

And finally we arrive welcomed by a glorious rainbow:

Prague - The Dancing House

Prague, November 2017

When I started my wide-body flights in July 2014, the amount of posts in this blog started to decline swiftly. It took me so many years to understand the toll that red eye flights were taking on me and on my mood and mental availability to do other things I used to do in my normal life, other than just recovering from another transatlantic crossing. Not even when I was a working student for two years I stopped writing here the way I did during these past years.

I have so many photos and stories of places I visited during the period of 2014-2023 that now I'm trying to catch up with while keeping up with current trips/layovers.

So... let's take-off to Prague!

This was one already retrofitted aircraft with the new narrow-body seats introduced in late 2016.

Our hotel had this very curious funicular taking us between reception and the room's building:

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The Dancing House

It wasn't my first time in Prague. But the previous times I totally missed one landmark: the Dancing House.

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The Vltava

The sun finally showed up for some photos I took along the day, using the river as a crucial element of Prague.

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Astronomical Clock

It was not my first time seeing it, but the astronomical clock is another feature you can't miss while visiting this city. A pity it was under renovation works which didn't help my photos...

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Head of Franz Kafka

The rotating head of Franz Kafka is also a landmark that attracts the curiosity of tourists.

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Archbishop's Palace

And now some final views of the city while the sunset was coming:

Prague is an adorable town but it did not became my favorite in this part of Europe. I hope to tell you somewhere in the future which one is ;)

Amsterdam Control Tower

Schiphol Airport, April 2025

Just a couple of photos I took on yesterday's turnaround to AMS of this iconic airport structure:

Nice reflection of TAP & IBE tails.

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

Dulles Airport, March 2025

First time I visited Washington, D.C. was in 2019, when I was still flying in the widebody fleet. That time I took the opportunity to visit the National Air and Space Museum.

Since I returned to the narrow-body fleet I've been to Washington many other times and revisited the city museum once again in 2023. But what I really wanted to do was to go the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at the Dulles Airport which is a long way from our layover site.

Last month I found the perfect opportunity and company among my colleagues to finally see the other location of the museum.

The best and most economical way to go to the museum from Washington is get the Metro Silver Line (direction Ashburn) to the Innovation Center and from there take the bus 983.

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General View

The museum is of free entrance and it does not need a time slot reservation contrary to what happens in the city location (also free).

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Boeing 367-80

Even though the most amazing aircraft in exhibition is the SR-71 Blackbird, what I really wanted to see was the Boeing 367-80 or "Dash 80". Commercial aviation is what truly motivates me and I have already seen other Blackbirds (A-12 or SR-71) in other museums.

These engines, while they are indeed the last propulsion used by this Boeing 707 prototype are not the original turbojets. These are already turbofan Pratts.

One curious aspect of this prototype which I never noticed before is the absence of flap track fairings:

The flap track fairings offer better aerodynamics not only by covering the flaps extension mechanism but also by mitigating the wing longitudinal flow that gives origin to the wingtip vortices, hence the large canoe-shaped structures we see today in modern commercial aircraft.

This was the same aircraft on which pilot "Tex" Johnston did a barrel roll, infuriating Boeing's president William Allen to whom he said he "was selling airplanes".

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Lockheed SR-71

Well, then we have the fastest aircraft in the world with its titanium structure.

One particular aspect of the Blackbird is its main landing gear with white tires to better withstand high temperatures because of high-speed landings.

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OV-103

The Space Shuttle Discovery is the biggest attraction inside the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar.

And a couple of close-ups with details of the Shuttle, including the tiles which were essential during the reentry phase and caused the failure of Columbia in 2003.

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Pegasus XL

Yet inside the Space Hangar, the Pegasus XL rocket is of particular interest to me because it uses the only airworthy L-1011 as an airborne launch platform.

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Concorde

The supersonic Concorde is one of the main attractions of the exhibition. Here together with a main landing gear of a A330/A340.

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Boeing B-29

The Enola Gay bomber is another historic aircraft in this museum, that casts a shadow over humanity of one of the most terrible fears we feel to this date since the deployment of the first two atomic bombs in Japan.

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Lockheed L-1049

And to end on a high note we finish with that one which is probably the most beautiful aircraft ever built, the Lockheed Super Constellation.

All in all, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is a true delight for all aviation geeks. The only downside is that you are not allowed to get inside of any airplane.

I have more photos of these and other aircraft on the correspondent gallery that you can find on the Albums Archive section.