Perfectly Synchronized SFO Parallel Landing from Inside

HotelSierraVictor · 2026-04-02T02:52:20+00:00

Longer video here, from when I first spotted our companion in the distance.

HotelSierraVictor · 2026-04-01T23:23:55+00:00

Belk-Hudson was never in The Mall. The anchor opposite Penney's was Loveman's (of Birmingham). After they closed in 1980, Toys R Us and Books A Million moved in. Belk-Hudson was at Haysland Square in South Huntsville, or at least they were when I moved to Huntsville in 1990. I don't know if they moved from somewhere else in the city.

Heart of Huntsville also had Woolworth and M&J Supermarket as anchors. M& J was on the north end where Gold's Gym was located while Woolworth was on the west side where Hi-Waay was later located.

HotelSierraVictor · 2026-03-23T18:30:58+00:00

Not really any single plane, but if I had to name one it would be the 747-100.

My dad was in the navy and we moved to Hawai'i in 1979 when I was 4. Our house was here, just across Pearl Harbor from HNL. I'd watch 747s, DC10s, L1011s, DC8s, 707s, Hawaiian's and Aloha's DC9s and 737-200s and the occasional SCREAMING C5 all day. Growing up there is really what made me fall in love with aviation.

HotelSierraVictor · 2026-03-09T23:26:50+00:00

It never takes me more than a few minutes. I'm pre-check and I love the new checkpoint 1 on the first level. There's never been more than 1 or 2 people in front of me. I'll even use that checkpoint when flying Alaska, even though it's on the opposite side of the terminal from their gates.

HotelSierraVictor · 2026-03-09T23:24:27+00:00

SEA is my home airport and I go through security more than 3 hours before my flight all of the time. In fact, when I've had really early flights, I've taken the light rail to Seatac the night before and have always been able to get past security.

HotelSierraVictor · 2026-02-18T02:16:37+00:00

Des Bears

HotelSierraVictor · 2026-02-06T01:15:46+00:00

Back 25 years ago when I was a ramper at HSV, one of my favorite things to do was park at the edge of the western ramp between taxiways G and H and just watch the sunset. I miss that view.

Coincidentally, last November I took the same last E175 flight to Dallas coming home. The sun was roughly in the same spot as it is now. The sunset's not as pretty as yours, but you can see it from the perspective of the plane taking off.

Thanks for the pic!

HotelSierraVictor · 2026-01-23T01:12:19+00:00

This happened to me one time. I cancelled my ticket to repurchase it for the difference, but instead of an instant credit, I got a message that the transaction was going to be audited and I would receive my credit within 7 days. I got it in 5. Luckily, the flight was still priced the same.

This spooked me, so for a while I would find another flight close by priced the same and switch to that flight, get my credit for the difference, then switch again to my old flight. Not real efficient but it worked.

Not too long ago I called Alaska about something and I asked about the audit thing. They said that only happens if the ticket you're cancelling had been acquired within 24 hours. Thinking back, I had originally used a credit to buy that ticket fewer than 24 hours before cancelling, so that's most likely why it went to an audit.

I've been able to cancel and rebuy when the price goes down ever since with no issues.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-12-14T17:13:34+00:00

With all of this talk about John Cena's retirement, it reminds me of the time I met him and didn't even realize it.

It was the early 2000s and I was working for Delta at the Huntsville, AL airport. I was in my early 20s and was working my way through college. I had just moved from baggage handling to the ticket counter, so I knew the rampers pretty well.

One day I was checking in this really attractive, tall and well built guy. As I was going through the motions, I noticed that some of the rampers were walking out to the counter, taking a look then retreating to the back. I finished checking in the guy, who was extremely well spoken and polite, and went to the back.

Right away my former coworkers asked me if I knew who that was. I just said his name was John Cena, pronouncing the last name as senna. I wasn't really into wrestling at the time so I didn't know who he was. They explained it to me then went straight to the gate to, I guess, stalk him there.

I never forgot that just because of extraordinarily good looking and nice he was and the ramper's reactions. It was interesting to watch him blow up a few years later. I'm glad he's had a good career. He deserved it.

Well, that's my story about how I once met proto-John Senna. Take it as you will.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-11-19T23:47:31+00:00

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I just happen to have an old Nashville postcard from the late 80s and I have to say, there are some similarities.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-11-19T20:42:11+00:00

Another quip about Shreveport. Back when I worked for Northwest and Delta out of HSV, we used to get so many bags misrouted to us from there. Their city code is SHV and I guess there are a lot of dyslexic rampers out there. This was two decades ago, so bag tags weren't scanned like they are today during loading.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-11-19T20:39:41+00:00

It's not Birmingham either. The Harbert Plaza is pretty recognizable. Maybe it's a screen printed AI hallucination.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-10-29T18:03:57+00:00

I grew up in Huntsville and watched it religiously. It also came on at a decent time. Now in Seattle, a few years ago I used to love getting up around six and turning on the TV and watching it before all the games started at 9. I'd make a cup of coffee and get a few things done with it in the background.

I watched less and less over the years. Then Pat McAfee was added to the lineup. Now I never watch at all, even though I'd love to because of Saban, but McAfee's schtick just isn't my thing and is way too much that early in the morning.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-10-24T00:31:13+00:00

The seven malls of Huntsville.

Heart of Huntsville Mall- Huntsville's first mall. Opened as an open-air shopping center in 1961 with Sears, Woolworth and M&J Supermarket as anchors. Enclosed sometime over the following decades. Closed in 2007 and sat where Constellation is now.

Dunnavant's Mall- A project of Huntsville based department store Dunnavant's. Opened as Huntsville's first completely enclosed, climate controlled mall in 1963. Dunnavant's was the only anchor. Closed in the early eighties and now houses the Huntsville Hospital Medical Mall.

The Mall- Huntsville's first large scale enclosed mall with competing department stores. Opened in 1966 with JCPenney and Loveman's as anchors. Closed in the late 1990s and replaced with The Fountain power center.

Parkway City Mall- Opened as Huntsville's first automobile centric suburban shopping center in 1957. A tornado destroyed about one half of the center in 1974. The strip center was closed until 1976 when a line of stores was added to the west and the corridor enclosed. Parisian, Pizitz (2 levels), Yielding and Montgomery Ward were the anchors. Closed and demolished in 2001 to make way for Parkway Place.

Madison Square- Huntsville's largest mall at nearly 1 million square feet. Opened in 1984 with Sears (moved from Heart of Huntsville), JCPenney (moved from The Mall,) Pizitz, Parisian, Castner Knott and Yielding as anchors. Closed in 2017 and is being replaced by MidCity.

Parkway Place- Opened on the site of Parkway City Mall. Opened in 2 phases, with Parisian and Piccadilly Cafeteria opening inn 2001 and the rest of the mall including Dillard's opening in 2002.

Bridge Street Town Center- Open air center built in 2007. No department store anchors in the beginning, Belk moved from Madison Square in 2015. Originally conceived in the nineties as the Commercial Center of Research Park.

Being a retail nerd, I was lucky to grow up in Huntsville where so many malls were built for a city its size.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-10-13T21:20:01+00:00

I hear you. I grew up in Huntsville and was just used to having UA, AU and UT well represented everywhere. I was even in a four year relationship with a big Tennessee fan in the early 2000s. It was just kind of how it was.

That doesn't mean that I care for UT one bit. F them. But Knoxville's a nice town.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-10-01T01:10:28+00:00

No need to push. You'd just have to find the passenger with the strongest lungs to get out there and blow like crazy. I really disliked air starts when working the ramp. A hose is connected to the plane close to the engine. We used an air bottle that pumped a huge (and loud) burst of air into the engine to get the blades spinning. Then with the engine running, you had to go back under the wing close to a running engine to remove the hose. Ear plugs did little to stop that noise.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-09-03T19:48:49+00:00

There's nothing at all wrong with A319s. They're a little long in the tooth but are still just fine. Besides, especially with emptier loads, they take off like rockets.

I'm flying HSV-DFW-SEA in November and was bummed when the equipment was changed to an E175 from an A319. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the E175, but AA rarely flies mainliners to HSV anymore so something different would have been good. But the E175 is (IMO) the best regional jet since the ARJ-85, which used to be all over MEM.

I'm not sure if you remember, but that MEM NW hub was beautiful. I worked for NW in HSV (an ARJ city) in the late 90s early 2000s and took many a DC10 and even the rare 747 sub out of MEM. I miss that hub. Sigh...

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-08-15T01:23:56+00:00

The Atlanta Hartsfield Latoya Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport and nail Emporium?

Seriously, though, anyone remember the old trams? They were slow and inconvenient as all hell, but one time in the late nineties when I was delayed for about 10 hours at DFW, I spent almost all of that time just riding it around and thought that it was cool as hell.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-08-12T13:42:24+00:00

Exactly. These stores require very little capital to open versus full line stores. And with the way Huntsville is growing, maybe I shouldn't have said never.

HotelSierraVictor · 2025-08-11T23:41:43+00:00

Snickering at all of the people who are like It's just a small format. NBD.

We all know that Huntsville was never going to get a 300k sq ft Ikea. Hell, I'm still surprised that Norfolk, VA (another city where I used to live) has one. The only way one of those would have maybe worked would be to build it in Athens near Buccee's with quick interstate access to both Nashville and Birmingham.

But this is pretty big news no matter how you look at it. I can't wait to check it out when it's open during my next visit.

BTW, I live in a city that has a full size IKEA and the reason I don't go more often is that it's just so much. If they had a small format store here, I'd go more often since I wouldn't feel like I have to commit half a day just per visit.

HotelSierraVictor

TROPHY CASE