Long trip home …
The RER train crashed at Stade de France, fortunately we weren’t on it. So we were running around like headless chickens trying to find a taxi to CDG. We got there in the nick of time to catch our first flight to LHR. Our flight to SFO sat at the gate for 45 minutes then taxied to a “quiet spot on the field” and sat for another hour and 15 minutes with the engines shut down. We were waiting for our “slot” in the volcano ash avoidance route, which took us up past Norway and then all around to the north of Iceland and finally across the top of Canada and down the west side of the US. Total bum-in-seat time of about 13 hours. But hey, we got home, where it’s always good to be …
All hail !!
Disclaimer: The handful of times I’ve whooped it up at Queen over the past 2 decades it has left a lot to be desired … and I hear it’s pretty much a straight joint these days. We have been assimilated … oh well.
Citroen’s flagship store …
Go figure …
Juxtaposition …
The Sacre Coeur and Le Pigalle are pretty much next door to each other …
Le Bourget … Engine Collection …
Quite a collection of antique engines … unfortunately the display is poorly signposted so one has little idea what one is looking at …
Le Bourget … French Experimentals …
Some weird and wonderful experimental aircraft I’ve never seen before.
Literally a glass cockpit stuck on the front end of a humongous jet engine …
You can’t see it in the picture, but that tube running along the underside makes a right angle at the tail end and terminates as a shower head – after-burner no doubt.
Le Bourget … 747 …
Cute idea to cut away parts of the cabin to reveal the inner workings of the 747.
Le Bourget … Concorde …
France’s Air and Space Museum is located at one of the Paris airports, where the annual Paris Airshow takes place. It has seen better times, somewhat dusty and tatty, but some cool exhibits none-the-less. The Concorde exhibit features 2 ships – #001 the flight testing platform still equipped with it’s ’60s era instrumentation.
#001 still needs a drip pan to catch the “stuff” dripping out of it’s underside.
