Travelogue: Day 13 - Tampa, Florida to Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas

Ah, sunny Florida. Where just about every northerner in the U.S. wishes he/she would rather be, rather than slogging through six inches of the white stuff back home. We start off in Tampa today. This time, we are going to head west for a bit, and pay the Lone Star State another visit at Dallas/Fort Worth.

Tampa International Airport is reminiscent of Boston: it is one of the busier airports in the U.S. which does not serve as a hub for any major airline. Southwest Airlines considers Tampa one of its top tier cities, with extensive operations there. Most other major domestic airlines offer substantial connections to Tampa from their main hubs, and even Air Canada, WestJet, and British Airways have gotten in on the act with international flights to Tampa.

Here we are at the cargo area of Tampa International, parked next to a UPS 727 freighter:



We have been directed to Runway 36L for takeoff. Here are some views of the terminals and Tampa skyline as we taxi by:





Nothing but blue skies and seas ahead of us as we arrive at 36L for takeoff!



And we're off!



We fly north briefly before turning west over the Gulf:





About 50 nm off the coast of Florida, we run into some showers in the Gulf. Nothing much to worry about, though:



Before long, we see the tip of the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana poking out into Gulf ahead of us. We will fly right up the mouth of the Mississippi to New Orleans, then continue northwest toward Alexandria and Dallas:



Here is a better view of the Mississippi Delta. New Orleans lies along the south short of Lake Ponchatrain ahead of us:



Here is a closer view of New Orleans and Lake Ponchatrain, directly below us:



Over central Louisiana, things get a bit cloudy once again:



However, things clear out nicely once we are in Texas, ready to begin our descent toward Dallas/Fort Worth:



We have been directed to land on Runway 13R. Strangely enough, in all the times I have ever flown into DFW Airport in Flight Simulator, I think this has to be a first. I usually almost always just prepare for a landing on 18R or 17C by default. (Now I actually have landed on 13R at DFW Airport in real life before...)

Here is the Dallas skyline below us. In the background, we see Dallas Love Field, a secondary airport serving Dallas. Southwest Airlines serves the Dallas/Fort Worth area out of Love Field, having opted to stay away from DFW Airport. We won't be visiting Love Field during our tour, but I have flown into it before many times in Flight Simultaor as well. The approach paths from the south are really cool, because you fly very close to the skyscrapers in downtown Dallas:



Anyway, 13R seems to be an unusual choice of runway for us to land on, but what the heck. We'll play along. We are north of the runway here, having circled around the airport. Soon we will line up on final:



Here we have picked up the localizer, and are getting lined up for final on 13R:



Another satisfactory landing! There is an ERJ-135 (probably American Eagle) coming in right behind us, so we better hurry off the runway:



The Dallas skyline is barely visible off in the distance. I'm not sure if you can see it from the airport in real life:



Here is an American Airlines hangar modeled in Flight Simulator. I thought it looked kind of cool:



Welcome to Texas! Yee-haw!

Flight time: 2:08

Next stop: Orlando