The radar is showing splotches of green and brown ahead as the landing gear thumps into the wheel well. It’s my leg to fly (and the 6th I’ve worked today) but the end is in sight, at least on my display screen. 300 miles to the west, and still well over the visual horizon the runways at Montgomery, AL are waiting for us. I’m much more interested in the hotel room bed that is waiting for me, but for now the runway, depicted on my screen, will have to do. Tower hands us off to Departure just as we pass through the first bands of rain.

The sun is still up, although as of right now it’s behind a wall of clouds. Despite that there is plenty of light to see where we are going and I’m able to dodge around a small buildup of clouds off the nose. Coming around the backside of the buildup I run out of options and we slam into a solid line of clouds. The radar still isn’t showing much so we accept the turn to the west Departure gives us.

The world goes momentarily dark and the control yoke bucks in my hand as we hit moderate chop. Before I can even reach up and arm the ignition to protect the engines from a flameout we are out the other side and the setting sun is clearly visible through cloud layers, hanging like a red beach ball just over the horizon. The radar depicted view of our path westbound is mostly clear now, but looking forward I can see a fuzzy gray blob of rain clouds just to the left of our route, plus a higher overcast we will likely have to claw our way through as we climb up.

I duck my head below the glare shield as the sun breaks through the clouds, suddenly blinding me. My FO grabs a sun visor and snaps it on the overhead rail. I can’t find my visor so I position my head so that the center pillar on the windshield blocks most of the light. Through the pinkish glow spreading across the windshield I can see giant raindrops splattering on the glass, streaming upward and out of sight.

Both the rain and sunlight levels increase as we continue climbing through 10,000 feet. I comment to my FO that with this much rain and sun you’d think there’d be a rainbow somewhere. With the autopilot now driving I take a few seconds to look around and sure enough, just to our south is the vertical stripe of a rainbow, running from the ground up into the cloud layers above us.

Departure Control hands us over to Atlanta Center who clears us to climb to 23,000 feet. Despite the hot temperatures outside we are lightly loaded and the airplane maintains a somewhat respectable climb rate. Working through 16,000 feet we fly into the base of the rain cloud I’d seen before and the ride roughens. As the light fades the rainbow shimmers, looses intensity and then disappears into the gloom. Seconds later we break into the clear again, now on top of the clouds, just in time to see the last sliver of the sun drop below horizon.

The route ahead is clear. Now just 220 miles away, below a solid layer of clouds and well beyond the curve of the earth, the beacon at Montgomery is reaching out to us.

We are finally up and running, after almost an hour of creeping towards the runway, heading westbound towards Chattanooga and the end of our day. Despite that, for a moment I wish we were still sitting on the ground as the airplane takes a huge lurch to the left and the updated radar sweep on my MFD shows a mass of red and brown ahead of us. The controller is sounding a bit like John Cusack in the movie Pushing Tin, as he spits out a mess of altitude and heading changes to the planes on frequency, trying to keep everybody out of the worst of the weather. After a particularly rapid set of 10 degree heading change instructions I catch my FO rolling her eyes while struggling to find a hand hold as we hit what feels like another large pothole. She verbalizes my thoughts when she laughs and says “I sure hope he knows what he’s doing”.

…

Over an hour ago we were parked at the gate in Charlotte, splitting the time between watching our passengers wander out to the airplane and the mass of gray and black clouds forming on the western horizon. I started to get impatient as both the line of weather and our departure time got closer and the people still continued to trickle out and walk to the plane. Finally we had everybody on board and managed to pushback. My concern was that if the weather hit the airport, with all the lightening the clouds were throwing off, they would probably shut down the ramp, leaving us stranded, unable to push back and go.

As it turned out, there was no rush to get going. Coming around the corner of the International Terminal we were forced to wait while a parade of fire trucks screamed across the ramp heading for the runway. The radio frequency was a mess with several airplanes request taxi and the ground controller trying coordinate with the lead fire truck. After a few moments of confusion everything seemed to be sorted out and we were cleared to taxi out to the runway, now lined with fire trucks every few hundred thousand feet. Looking out on final I could see only one set of landing lights and realize they’d stopped arrivals until the emergency aircraft was down. It was going to be a long night for everybody.

The emergency aircraft touched down just as we ran into the back end of the line of planes waiting to take off. I watched as a fire truck rolled out on to the runway and took off after the landing plane. As they passed out of sight on our right I went into fuel planning mode. There were about 10 airplanes lined up in front of us. We had 900 pounds of fuel above our minimum for takeoff and with one engine and the APU running we were using about 450 pounds an hour. It had been a long day and the math took a few seconds but once I got the number I was happy with it. Assuming the emergency was no big deal and was able to clear the runway we would be able to get out with plenty of fuel. My thinking was momentarily interrupted by a huge flash of white light. I’d forgotten about the weather.

. . .

Lights have started to appear on final again as airplanes are vectored towards the runway. The first one checks in 6 miles out and is cleared to land. Tower advises him that the winds are currently at 12 knots but there have been 31 knot gusts recorded. The only reply from the airplane is a short “roger”. The first drops of rain are starting to speckle the windshield as the landing airplane comes in over the end of the runway. Even from where we are we can see the wings rocking and the nose coming up. It doesn’t look like they are having fun at all. Despite the bumpy approach they make a nice landing and as soon as they are clear the first guy waiting to take off spools up and blasts off into the dark. The conga line slides forward one spot.

We continue this slow roll forward for another 20 minutes with each arrival looking more and more ugly. The winds are up to 25 knots although the gusts seem to have died down a bit. A CRJ clears the runway and reports the ride down was “extremely horrible”. I decide that despite everybody else taking off, if it’s still this bad when we get to the number one spot we won’t be going anywhere, fuel numbers be dammed. My FO agrees as we watch another inbound bounce towards the runway, drop suddenly, level off and then slam into the pavement.

By the time we get to be number 4 to go the weather seems to be moving off the airport. The frequency of lightning flashes has diminished and the winds are holding steady at about 20 knots. The rain is still coming down heavily, but it’s nothing our wipers can’t keep up with. The 757 in position on the runway is cleared to go and his nose light and strobe come on. Even from this far away we can hear him spool up the engines as he starts rolling forward. We still have 600 pounds of fuel to play with so I give the ok and my FO starts up our left engine. By the time we are next to go all the checklists have been read and we both agree the weather is back within acceptable levels to take off.

The wind is only blowing at 15 knots by the time we are cleared to take off but the rain is still coming down. In my head I run through the list of switches I need to throw before we start rolling. The nose landing light clicks on followed by the strobe light. The wipers come on next, momentarily clearing the water streaming down the windshield and giving me a good view down the runway at the centerline lines that are disappearing into the murk in front of us. A quick click of the TakeOff-GoAround button sets my command bars where I want them on my Primary Flight Display, and happy with everything I push up the thrust levers, watching as the engine instruments start to spool up.

Water is spilling off the sides of the front windshield at such a rate I can see it out of the corner of my left eye, streaming across the side window, briefly illumined by our strobelights. Despite the wind and wet runway the plane is staying on centerline without much input from me. At 80 knots everything looks good. As we pass through 130 knots I can feel the plane start to get lighter and by 150 we are off the ground and flying. The gear comes up as advertised and between trimming the nose back down and watching my airspeed increase I take a quick look at the radar. It’s going to get very interesting very quickly. The next five hundred feet of climb is smooth and then we punch into the cloud bases and fun starts.

…

The Cusask sounding controller gives us another 10 degree heading change and I finally see what his plan is. There is weather to the south and some to the northwest, but he has found a passage out to the southwest and then due west to push airplanes through. After 5 more minutes of rough air and heavy rain he clears us direct to a fix down the road just as we pop out the backside of the weather and into clear air. Off in the distance, well to the north of our route, a large thunderhead is visible, throwing of electricity into the dusky sky. To the south is nothing but darkness. Straight off the nose, 200 miles away is Chattanooga and the end of our day. The horizon is a clear deep blue, fading to black above, punctuated with the pinpricks of the first stars of the evening.

With apologies to Ms. Markham

Out the window the whole southern sky is alive with flashes of light amidst the dark clouds. Off our nose to the left is nothing but darkness, illuminated by the constant flickering of cloud to cloud lighting, which stretches all the way back and fades out of my field of vision behind our wingtip. Straight of the nose is a patch of dark blue, the last evidence of the setting sun, now long since dropped over the far western horizon. Fortunately for us our destination this evening is Jackson, Mississippi which lies in front of us to the west and away from the worst of the weather. A small flash of white light momentarily draws my attention away from the light show to the south. Just visible through the murk below us are the red and green position lights and strobes of a southbound aircraft. Their evening is just about to get interesting.

An hour ago we were holding short of the runway in Charlotte watching a Mainline 737 break out of the low overcast, its landing lights cutting a path through the darkness and rain. The last radar snap I got from my phone before shutting it off showed a solid line of weather to the south of the airport slowly working its way north. Taxiing out in a heavy rain, what little light that was left in the sky was clearly to the north west. To the south was nothing but darkness. The fact that arriving aircraft, heading towards the airport facing the wall of weather, didn’t sound too concerned about things when they checked in with the tower controller made me feel better, but only a little bit.

With the 737 exiting downfield we were cleared into position and hold on the runway. The FO ran the last few items on the Before Take Off checklist and I flipped on our landing lights, leaving the strobe light off until we were actually rolling down the runway. The radar had been warming up for a few minutes and I now set my display range to 10 miles and tilted the dish to 4.5 degrees up. Radar is something of a dark art and often times the best you can hope for is to guess correctly. Now the display was a mess of splotchy green and brown bands, indicating moderate precipitation and probably turbulence. The good news was the first band with red in it was well beyond where I expected us to make a turn to the west and probably not a factor. Also the planes taking off in front of us hadn’t reported any issues on the way out.

Once the 737 was out of the way and Tower cleared us to go I flipped on the strobe light. There was a cloud of moisture hanging over the runway kicked up by the previous arrival’s thrust reversers but as our engines spooled up and we started rolling forward the windshield wipers, now operating at high speed quickly cleared the water that stuck to the windshield. Through 80 knots everything was in the green and I spent the next few seconds focusing on keeping the nose wheel on the runway centerline, barely visible through the rain and mist. As we passed through our rotation speed of 143 knots the plane was ready to fly and it took just a light pull on the yoke to lift off the rain soaked runway.

With the nose pointed skyward I called for gear retraction and settled back in my seat. As soon as we were off the ground I had made the somewhat awkward reach with my right hand, across the yoke to the aircraft sidewall to turn off the wipers. Once they stopped the front window was immediately obscured by water streaming past. That was ok though as between the rain and darkness there wasn’t much to see anyways. Climbing through 1000 feet I lowered the nose slightly and began to accelerate to 200 knots. The flaps came up as tower handed us over to departure who gave us a turn to the west and away from the bands of weather that were now painted bright reds and yellows on the radar displays.

Around 12,000 feet the rain rushing by the airplane, briefly illuminated in our flashing strobe light, started to turn into ice. Fortunately the ride was mostly smooth despite several airplanes to our south desperately quarrying ATC in search of a less turbulent altitude. Due to our light load and the cooler air temperatures we were able to keep a good climb rate and somewhere near Athens, Georgia we leveled off at 32,000 feet, with frozen precipitation still blasting by the airplane at over 400 miles per hour. A quick check of the numbers showed we could climb higher in the hope of getting out of the clouds. Moments later we had a clearance to 38,000 in hand.

We exited the clouds around 35,000 feet and what few bumps there had been immediately disappeared. Leveled off over 7 miles above the darkened earth, the visibility now unrestricted ahead of us, I put the radar back to sleep and took a few minutes to update our fuel and speed numbers in the flight computer. After pondering things for a few seconds the computer decided that we would in fact have enough fuel to get to Jackson and it should take us another 50 minutes to do so. With that business taken care of I adjusted my seat slightly and stared out the window at the light show to our south.

With Jackson now just 150 miles away and the last of the dark blue fading from the sky in front of us, Memphis Center clears us down to 19,000 feet. As I pull the thrust levers back to idle and the nose of the plane starts to drop towards the dark clouds below I take one more look at the strobing thunderclouds to our south. The sky to the west is now completely dark and a few stars are visible against the velvety blackness. The lights of the other traffic we passed have long since faded into nothingness and I wonder how their flight is going. It’s more than just a passing curiosity as I know that despite my luck with the weather this evening there will be plenty of other times where I’ll be that airplane heading into the heavy weather, Southbound with the night.

It’s approaching 11am and I’ve already been at the airport for 6 hours. Every 30 minutes a recorded voice announces the current time and by my calculations, assuming I don’t get called to cover a trip, I’ve got to sit through eight more versions of “the local time is….”

I’m sitting ready reserve (for the fourth time this month) and like the previous three times, I have no expectation of getting used. Ready reserve is one of the weakest areas of our contract in that it allows a crew member to be scheduled to sit at the airport, 15 minutes from a gate at all times for 10 hours. And get paid for none of it. The good news is we get $1.50 an hour in per diem, which after taxes doesn’t even cover lunch and the fuel to drive to the airport and back. It’s a fun time. The other frustrating fact is that it’s very rare to get used while sitting ready reserve. The crews that do it in Charlotte get called out pretty regularly, but because Dayton is such a small base now with very few flights (7 on this rainy Saturday morning) there isn’t really a need for the coverage. But here I sit.

I have a pretty standard routine down for sitting airport reserve. Now that the weather is nice I can sleep in my car for a while so after rolling into the employee parking lot at 5am I try to find a dark corner, push my seat all the way back and lean the seatback as far down as it will go. If it’s not too cold I’ll crack open a window for some fresh air and then do my best to fall back asleep. I’ve lucked out in the fact that that three of the four mornings I’ve had hot reserve this month it’s been raining so it doesn’t get light as quickly and the sound of rain helps me go back to sleep.

Normally I can make it until 7:30am or so before I just can’t sleep any more. At that point I’ll get out of my car, stretch my legs, straighten my uniform, try to remove any lint that may have accumulated from my blanket and then start dragging my flight case and rolling bag towards the terminal and breakfast. We do have a “quiet” room just off of the maintenance hangar, but it’s anything but quiet as you can hear everything from the mechanics break room (TV, microwave, snack machines, mechanics playing cards etc) and the woman’s restroom on the other side of the wall.

Once through security I normally stop by the coffee shop and pick up a cranberry muffin to eat. Every time the women behind the counter (in the 4 years I’ve been doing this I’ve never seen a man working there) seem puzzled that I don’t want anything to drink. From there I head over to the crew room where I check my vfile to see what’s accumulated since I was there last. After that I log in to the computer and check my schedule to see if they’ve got me assigned to do something. I really shouldn’t even bother as there is nothing ever there. The computers now actually reach the rest of the internet (before they only accessed Company websites) so I’ll check my email, CNN, a few forums and blogs and sometimes Facebook. With that accomplished I’ll normally go sit outside the crewroom and read a book for a while.

That’s how far I’ve gotten now. My book (a collection of travel essays by Paul Theroux), while interesting, is getting a bit repetitive. Visit a foreign place. Talk to the locals. Make a witty remark and compare and contrast with some well known figure in literature. Rinse and repeat.

Another 4 hours and I can go home….

The cockpit darkened very quickly as we descended into the clouds. What light was left from the setting sun behind our wings quickly faded as the first wisps of gray started flying by the windows, gently buffeting the wings and tail. The radar wasn’t showing anything interesting in front of us, but as the bumps continued to increase in intensity I reached up to turn on the continuous ignition and then pulled the power back slightly to slow to 280 knots, our best speed for turbulence. Ahead to the north were the runways at Philadelphia, but between us and them were 80 miles of swirling, wet and bumpy darkness.

We’d launched out of Nashville an hour ago, 2 hours later than planned; typical of bad weather days in the Northeast. After blasting off a wet runway we’d navigated around (and through) a small line of weather near the airport before turning east towards Philly, some 650 miles away. After 20 minutes of bouncing through the leading edges of the weather we’d finally climbed into clear air and for the first time that day I enjoyed a bit of sunlight. Our stay at altitude was brief and only 15 minutes after getting there ATC had us heading back down and eventually back into the clouds.

With the weather radar sending a constant stream of energy out the front of the airplane we kept descending through 18,000. Most of the radio waves continued on into infinity but a fair number found enough moisture in their path to bounce back and show up as green and yellow splotches on the display screen in front of me. With the First Officer using the second radio to call in range to Philly, I put a quick request in with ATC for a turn to the right to avoid a small cell. They gave me the turn and told me to report when we were back on track. By the time the FO was back working the main radio we were heading in the right direction again and were handed off to Philly Approach Control.

With the weather as bad as it was (low ceilings, rain and mist), Philly was landing on only one runway, which was part of the reason we’d sat on the ground in Nashville so long. Now ATC was vectoring us through the weather towards a radio beam 25 miles away which would eventually guide down to the ground. Passing through 10,000 feet I flipped on the landing lights and turned the No Electronic Device sign back on. As the green PA in use light came on I could hear our Flight Attendant running though her before landing announcement which involves the standard seatback and tray tables up and locked spiel. I’ve heard it a thousand times before and I’ll hear it a several thousand times more before I’m done. Out in front of the plane the landing lights were illuminating a swirling mass of clouds while thousands of drops of water appeared frozen in the air every time the wingtip strobe flashed.

One more turn and we were now heading towards the runway, unseen through the clouds and dark, 12 miles away. The navigation instrumentation came alive and the autopilot locked on the Instrument Landing System’s radio beam which began at the end of runway and ended some miles behind us in the gray, churning sky. 8 miles from the airport and descending at 1000 feet a minute I called for the first of the flaps. They were closely followed by more flaps and as our airspeed bled off, the landing gear. The FO ran the before landing checklist and as we passed through 2000 feet he put out the last of the flaps. As the flaps locked into place, trailing in the clouds and rain 45 degrees below the wing, the Tower controller cleared us to land.

As the plane called off 1000 feet above the ground we dropped out of the clouds and the dark waters of the Delaware River came into sight below us. 3 miles away, out of the murk, the approach lights for Runway 9R came into view.

I made a quick visual check to ensure everything was as it should be. The gear was down. The flaps were full. The “cleared to land light” (the taxi light switch) was on. We were on speed and we were descending at 700 feet per minute. Everything checked. By then the computer was calling off 500 feet. By 100 feet I could make out the damp concrete rapidly passing below me and quickly rehashed a wet runway landing. The power came out at 50 feet and as the aircraft called out “Ten” I gave a slight pull on the yoke and we settled to the ground. In the space of a second my mind switched from “flying mode” to “driving mode” and we started decelerating on the wet pavement.

This is a little different than the norm. I’ve been reading a whole bunch of short stories recently and instead of writing about part of a flight I tried my hand at writing about part of the layover.

It was oppressively hot when I stepped out of the hotel; the sort of hot you expect in the South but still manage to be surprised by when it hits you. What was left of the late afternoon sun added to the heat and glare as it shown down through the hazy skies. I thought momentarily about heading back inside, past the cool, quiet lobby and taking up the elevator to my 4th floor room to retrieve my sun glasses but thought better of idea. It was very likely that as soon as the cool air of the hotel enveloped me I’d give up and decide not to venture back outside into the heat again. With my eyes squinting against bright light I shuffled down the cracked asphalt of the side street that the hotel shared with an abandoned banquet hall and a plumbing repair shop, towards the intersection.

A time and temperature sign across the street broadcast the fact that it was 6:13pm and 84 degrees. By the time I would complete my trip and return back down this street it would be 6:55pm, 80 degrees and a man would have disappeared. But for now I pushed forward against the oppressive heat towards the traffic light at the top of the street. Amidst the heat and glare I felt the need for a sound track and during a pause in constant drone of traffic on the main road and the Interstate I imagined crickets chirping and wind rustling through tall grass. Somehow the sound of a brass trumpet playing a downbeat jazz tune worked its way into my music and much to my surprise remained there as the imaginary crickets and wind faded away.

He was standing on the opposite side of the main road dressed in long sleeves, camo pants and a brown sort of hat that at one point in time may have sported a baseball team’s logo. At his feet was a worn, black gym back. Propped up against the bag was a ragged cardboard sign. It was the sort of sign you see homeless people holding with phrases like “please help”, “hungry” and “god bless” on them. But through the shimmering heat and blur of passing traffic I couldn’t see what his sign said. He was facing the interstate exit ramp which, when later when I took the time to think about it, struck me as odd if he was looking for a ride.

He was across the street from and he was facing away from me, towards the east while he played his trumpet. Despite that, the instrument’s sound was crystal clear in the heat during the lulls in traffic noise. I used one of these gaps in traffic to cross the intersection, my feet dragging heavily in the hot, heavy air. Clear of the main road I turned west, away from the lone trumpet player, and with one look over my shoulder I put my head down and continued on to my destination and waiting food.

30 minutes later having eaten and recovered somewhat in the cool, metallic air of the restaurant, I headed back out into heat to return to the hotel. As I pushed open the door and felt the rush of hot air I listened for the sound of the trumpet but didn’t hear anything. Heading east along the main road my eye’s scanned the shimmering surface for the man with the camo pants and brass trumpet but I saw nothing more than some blowing trash and a single motorcycling turning onto the interstate.

Far away the sound of a two-tone siren floated over the hill and down the main road on the hot, still air. The street was now deserted and I crossed back towards the waiting cool air of the hotel lobby. The flashing red time and temperature sign next to the desolate State Fairgrounds now announcing to anybody who passed by that it was 6:55pm and 80 degrees. I took one quick look back towards the intersection before turning off the side street and into the hotel driveway; there was no trumpet player and I wondered if there ever had been one.

It’s 12:15am and we’re sitting inside the cockpit of a 700 looking outside at a completely deserted ramp. The mechanic who drove us over the airplane 30 minutes before is outside on the phone complaining to a friend about how he’s still stuck at work. Momentarily I think about complaining to somebody as well but instead call Operations for the third time to see if they can find us a ramp crew to push us off the gate. After three calls I finally get a response. “Oh, they’ve all gone home now. Sorry.” Why they didn’t tell me this when I first called 20 minutes ago I don’t know. I console myself with the thought that this is what happens when you start operating outside the envelope of normal every day operations.

My evening started 10 hours early when I got on a plane in San Francisco to start my commute to work. 6 hours later I was in Dayton and heading over to the Hangar to pick up a plane to ferry to Charlotte. After waiting around for a while for Maintenance to finish fixing an issue the FO and I taxied out and headed south for Charlotte, where a Knoxville based flight crew and 35 passengers were eagerly awaiting our arrival so they could fly home. 55 minutes after taking off we were dropping back out of the sky into a mostly empty Charlotte Airport.

While taxiing in to the gate we got a text message asking us to give Dispatch a call about doing a quick Maintenance check. That didn’t sound very good and my visions of a nice comfy hotel bed were rapidly disappearing. Once at the gate we handed the plane off to the other crew and headed inside where I gave Dispatch a call and after getting handed around the room (a line dispatcher, the dispatch supervisor and then a Maintenance Controller) I was told that the lead mechanic would meet us at the gate and explain the issue. 10 minutes later he showed up and told us that the plane had been written up earlier in the day for “pulling” to the right when landing. They thought they’d fixed the problem but the only way to know for sure was to put it out on the runway and get up some speed and then slam on the brakes and see what happens. At 11:45 at night this sounded like really stupid idea to me but after talking it through with the FO we agreed that as long as we don’t go faster than 70 knots we could do it.

So here we sit, in an empty plane waiting on rampers who apparently aren’t going to show up because they, wisely, have already gone home. I spin in the Company frequency and after two tries am able to raise a Maintenance controller who tells me they are aware of the issue and are sending another mechanic over who is qualified to push airplanes. Sure enough, five minutes later a second mechanic arrives and after a brief conversation with the first mechanic, drives a tug over and attaches the towbar to our nose gear.

Because we require both a driver and a wing walker to push back what follows is an oddly choreographed ballet. First we shut the main cabin door and our mechanic serves as wing walker while the other mechanic pushes us back. Then, after I’ve set the brake the FO jumps up, opens the door again while our mechanic helps unhook the tug before getting on board and shutting the door. In the meantime I’ve got both engines going and after a bit of confusion involving ground telling us to call ramp and ramp telling us to call ground, we start rolling out to the runway for the high speed taxi.

It’s now 12:45 and there isn’t another airplane moving on the entire airport. The ground controller is also working as the tower controller and probably everything else as she clears us to taxi on the runway as necessary. A quick run through the checklists has my responding to “doesn’t apply” or “not needed” to most items as if we do everything right we are most certainly not going flying. That finished, I flip on the landing lights and the strobe and taxi out on to the runway. After checking with both the FO and the Mechanic strapped in behind us I throw the power levers up to just below the first detent (which will normally give us climb power) and release the brakes.

There is a moment of hesitation and then the plane starts surging forward, much faster than I anticipated. I pull back the power a little bit and then satisfied with things I start focusing on keeping the nose wheel aligned with the rapidly blurring runway centerline lights. In what seems like seconds the FO is calling 60 knots and by the time I get the thrust levers back to idle we are blowing through 75 knots.

As I push forward on the tops of the rudder pedals to engage the brakes I realize I’ve already got a fair amount of left rudder in just to keep the plane going straight. Applying both brakes evenly causes the airplane to veer sharply to the right, just as was written up in the logbook. By easing off the right brake and pressing the left one fully down I am able to keep the plane moving in a straight line. With the speed rapidly decreasing I ease off the left brake and by 20 knots of airspeed the plane is again tracking straight with no input.

We clear the runway just 4000 feet from where we started. Ground clears us to taxi back to the ramp and we pull back in to the gate at 12:50, just 13 minutes after we left. After shutting down the plane I fill out the logbook stating that the high speed taxi check was unsatisfactory and the airplane was still pulling to the right. I then sign it and put my employee number next to it. It’s one of the only times we ever actually put our name and employee number in the logbook. By then my FO has completed the walk around and dragged his bags down the steps. I follow him and head inside towards the hotel and the bed I’d been thinking about for the last few hours.

I cringed slightly as my FO made a call to Ground Control for a push back clearance. There is a brief moment at LaGuardia, just after you call ground control, where you get a sense of how the next little bit of your life is going to go. Either they are going to completely ignore you and keep spouting out a constant stream of instructions for the multiple of airplanes they are trying to move around too little real estate or they will immediately clear you to push back. It’s rare there is any in between. This evening we were in luck and after a little confusion about who was calling for push we were cleared for spot 23.

The clearance received, I released the parking brake and let our push tug driver that we were cleared to push. He said something back, but in typical fashion his headset didn’t seem to be working (or he didn’t know how to transmit on it) and I heard nothing. It was also possible they never actually plugged the headset cord into the access panel on the nose of the plane. This is a pretty common occurrence and I didn’t really worry about it which ended up being the right course of action as several seconds later we were rolling back off of the gate and towards Spot 23. Doubting the driver could hear me anyways I held up two fingers on my right hand and spun one finger on my left hand asking if we could start the right engine. The driver took minute to actually look over to the right side of the plane and then nodded his head. I nodded to the FO who proceeded to engage the starter.

Several seconds later the engine numbers started to come up and as the core speed passed 25% he introduced fuel flow. After a seconds hesitation the engine lit off and the fan speed and Internal Turbine Temperature both started to rise. On the 200 an engine will spin up in a matter of seconds, while the 700 and most other bigger planes can take a bit longer. With one engine spinning and the towbar disconnected I waved to the departing rampers and called for an after start checklist. With the potential for major sitting and waiting on the taxiway I was content just running one motor until we know how long we’d be sitting for.
Ground cleared us for taxi and told us to hold short of a crossing runway. By the time we got that runway there were only 4 airplanes on the other side waiting to go. Counting this as a pretty good New York experience, I gave my FO the ok to spin the other engine and within minutes we had both engines going, the flaps out and a clearance to cross the runway and monitor the Tower Controller. By the time we had finished running the taxi and before takeoff checklists Tower had cleared us into position on the runway and after a brief wait while traffic landed on the other runway we were blasting off into the darkening dusk.

It was the FO’s leg and he did a nice job of navigating the departure procedure (a turn to the right, at 3 miles a turn back to the left and then start accelerating). As we turned westward and towards home he lowered the nose to pick up airspeed. As the speed increased so did a steady whistling noise I’d started to hear just as we’d rotated but quickly blocked out of my mind due to both the level of attention a complex departure procedure requires and the fact that I really didn’t want to think about what it might mean. Now, as I finished running the after takeoff checklist and confirmed with New York Approach that we were cleared up to 10,000 feet, I took a moment to listen to the whistling which was now loud enough to make conversation difficult in the cockpit.

Prior experience told me that we had an access panel open on the nose somewhere. There are three up there, the oxygen service panel, the ground power panel and the communications panel which the ground crew plugs a headset into. This comm. door is the most commonly opened one and hence the one most often left open or improperly closed so it pops open in flight. All three doors are hinged at the bottom and have two latches on the top. The likelihood of damage to something inside the panel, even if it opens in flight is low. However it’s very possible that the door could be ripped off in the airstream and either do damage to the skin of the airframe or even worse get sucked into the engine.

Because of these potential issues it is company policy to return to the airport so they can close the door and a mechanic can make sure there is no skin damage. Even though I was pretty certain we were going to be landing somewhere shortly, that wasn’t a decision I wanted to make on my own and after briefing the FO on what was going on I asked him to work with New York ATC to keep us at a lower attitude and heading west to where I knew there were several good diversion airports. We could have gone back to LaGuardia, but after our painless escape the first time I didn’t want to temp the fates a second time.
With the FO talking to New York on COM 1 I flipped over to COM 2 where I attempting to get in touch with the company. Normally this would have involved a simple ACARS text message but our ACARS was broken so instead I had to rely on the somewhat archaic method of calling ARINC (basically a company that provides radio service coverage in order to establish phone patches as needed) and have them connect me to a dispatcher at my company. This took several attempts but eventually I had a very scratchy patch through to Dispatch and Maintenance. They both agreed with my assessment and endorsed the idea of heading west to land. By this point we were about 40 miles east of Harrisburg, PA and I told them I’d be heading there and I’d call them on the ground.

Before I could get any acknowledgment of my message the patch died and I lost them. Guessing they’d figure out what I was doing I switched back to COM 1 and let ATC know of our intent to land at Harrisburg and that while we did have a maintenance issue it was not going to facilitate us declaring an emergency. By this time my FO had gotten the weather (a nice evening thankfully) and I set us up for a visual approach to Runway 13. I then handed the radio back to the FO and let the Flight Attendant know what was going on. All he could do was laugh as the last time we’d flown together we’d had to divert because of weather and instead of getting home at 9pm (like we were scheduled this evening) we did’t get back until after midnight. I also made a quick PA to keep the passengers in the loop.

By the time I was done doing that we were descending through 8000 feet with the airport in sight. My FO briefed the approach and then after we flew through a small rain shower had me let ATC know we had the airport. An approach clearance in hand he dumped the autopilot and turned a tight final inside a military KC135 tanker who was also diverting to Harrisburg because of a medical issue. By 1000 feet the gear was out the final flaps were down. The approach comes low across the Susquehanna River. The gusty wind, although right down the runway was forming small whitecaps on the water. Despite that we made a nice landing and at 60 knots I took the plane back and taxied clear. As I turned back towards the ramp the lights of the KC135 were bumping towards the runway through the wind and dark.

The last of the rain showers had blown through an hour earlier leaving a lower layer of blowing scud and large damp patches on the ramp as I walked out to the plane. I had overnighted in Washington, DC and after a somewhat restful night had caught a shuttle to the airport to meet up with my crew and fly DCA to Knoxville and then on to Charlotte where I was to catch a deadhead back to Dayton and home. As I dragged my bag across the huge expanse of concrete and around the nose of a Mainline Airbus 320 a Delta 757 dropped out of the clouds to the north and rolled into a bank to the left to align itself with Runway 19.

My plane had just pulled up as I stared walking outside and as I arrived at the aircraft steps the last of the passengers were getting off. The captain who I was replacing (a friend of mine from new hire and upgrade training) was the last off as he headed back inside to catch a deadhead down to Charlotte. We had a quick conversation about the lastest measures being enacted by the company to screw over the pilots (they are starting to get REALLY creative) but any attempt at further conversation was cut off by the plane parked in front of us starting up and taxiing forward. I ducked through the swirling engine exhaust and up the steps of my plane where I said hi to the FO who was heading in to the terminal to grab some Dunkin Donut’s coffee (he’s a Boston area native) and then threw my flight case and laptop case upfront.

Washington has a new policy where we have to go to Load Planning (basically trailer hidden among a bunch of lav carts) to get our paperwork. While the FO headed in to get his coffee and the Flight Attendant caught up on her reading (People when I left, US Weekly when I came back) I walked over to the trailer, thankful once again the rain had stopped. Paperwork in hand I headed back to the plane trying to stay out of the puddles and avoid the APU blasts from half a dozen parked RJs. By the time I got back to the plane our busload of passengers was arriving. The Flight Attendant put away her magazines while I settled into my seat to start going over the flight release and weather.

I had made it through the flight release and forecasted weather with no problems. I then took a quick look at the current weather. As of an hour ago the visibility was down to 1 and ½ miles with rain and mist and a low overcast layer of clouds. An hour before that it was at 2 miles and rain and before that showed 3 miles and mist. There was a clear trend of the weather getting worse. The problem was that the forecasted weather was not only showing that it was going to be good at our time of arrival, but that it never was bad in the first place. Obviously there was a disconnect here. The real issue was that our fuel load was based on the weather being good and not needing an alternate. If we launched with our current fuel and then got to Knoxville only to find we couldn’t get in because of the weather we’d be in a world of hurt.

To get more information I tracked down my dispatcher’s phone number from the flight release and gave her a call. She was able to provide the latest weather, only 5 minutes old which had the visibility up to 3 miles and the overcast at 3500 feet. Also the weather current included the magic letters PRESRR meaning the pressure was rapidly rising, a sign of improving weather. Based on that information I made a quick decision that despite the forecast not being correct over the past few hours, it would be correct for our time of arrival.

The FO returned with his coffee and after I explained the situation to him, he agreed with my assessment. By then our passengers were on board and we closed the door and got underway. After a slight delay while the plane in front of us started up and taxied out, we headed out to runway 15 and were soon blasting off to the south. After a momentary level off in the clouds we were cleared on our route and to climb up 30,000. The ride smoothed out as soon as we passed through 10,000 feet and I started keeping track of our fuel. At the halfway point we had burned 100 pounds more than planned but by our next waypoint we were back on our burn schedule.

20 minutes later and 120 miles farther south we dropped back through the clouds just to the north of Knoxville. The airport came into sight about 15 miles away proving the validity of the weather forecast I’d been looking over an hour before.

My first clue that it might be a long morning came when I walked out the front door of the hotel in Mobile. Rain was cascading down so hard that the headlights of the few cars that were passing by at 5am on Interstate 10 across the parking lot were a soft blur in the rain and mist. The second clue was the bright flash of lighting and loud clap of thunder that was audible over the rain pelting down on the overhang above me. I looked over at my FO who was desperately trying to inhale his coffee and wake up and just wearily shook my head. He mimicked the gesture as did the Northwest Airlink crew who we’d shortly be sharing the van to the airport with. Some days that’s about all you can do.

15 minutes later we were unloading in front of Mobile Regional Airport’s main entrance. The rain was still coming down hard and now I could directionally orient myself with the airport complex and saw, much to my dismay that the majority of the lighting was to the west, which meant it still hadn’t reached us yet. A quick trip through Operations to pick up our paperwork and we were heading out the back door of the airport to walk to the plane. Fortunately most of the walk was under the cover of the terminal building and only the last 50 feet required us to head out into the downpour. Lighting was still flickering across the horizon when I left my back under the relative dryness of the jetway and sloshed through the puddles on the ramp to get the airplane’s door open. I figured my FO would have to brave the elements to do his walk around so I could at least stand outside long enough to get the door open so we could get on board.

That tasked accomplished, the three of us took turns shuttling our various bags and flight cases from under the jetway, across the 50 feet of open ramp, up the aircraft stairs and into the forward galley of the plane which was rapidly filling with water from the windblown rain. Once I had all my gear on board I got started with the daily process of getting the aircraft powered up and then running through the litany of checks and tests to ensure that all the switches (there are over 150 of them in the cockpit) are in the right position and all the systems are working properly. With that completed I stepped back into the galley which now resembled a wading pool and decided that until they got the jetway moved over to the aircraft I would shut the main cabin door to keep the rain out. That accomplished I headed back up front to start looking at the paperwork and weather for the flight.

Other than the local thunderstorm it didn’t look too bad. The weather was in the shape a large backwards “L” with the base starting west of New Orleans from where it headed due east (over Mobile) until it got to Pensacola, FL. From there the system headed north-east to where it died out around Atlanta. Charlotte (or eventual destination) was in the clear of the storm system but in typical early Spring fashion was fogged in to less than ½ a mile. Outside in the rain I watched a gate agent run up the jetway stairs and then a moment later reappear at the end of the cab to move it over to the aircraft. I called back for our Flight Attendant to open the door and as soon as he did the rain started blowing back into the cabin. After several seconds of this I looked back over to the jet way only to see the gate agent was gone. She reappeared underneath by the power unit and after pressing buttons for a few minutes came over to the airplane. Apparently the jetway had been hit by lighting at some point during the night and was not powering up.

We both agreed that loading passengers across the flooded ramp, in the middle of a lightning storm was not in anybody’s best interest so I asked her if we could maybe use Northwest’s gate once their plane left. She said she’d check and a few minutes later came back out to let us to know that we would us American’s jetway which was located on the other side of the terminal. 15 minutes later American Eagle’s ERJ taxied out and we started up our engines, turned out and then taxied the 500 feet around the corner to the other gate. After a brief bit of confusion about the jetway being configured for an ERJ and not a CRJ they got things rolling and parked it against the plane. 10 minutes later our passengers were boarding and 20 minutes after that (and only 15 minutes after our scheduled departure time) we were starting up our engines for the second time that day and taxiing out.

The good news was that due to our delay the first hints of day light were creeping in from the east. Also by now most of the weather had moved over. It was the FOs leg and as we taxied to runway 32 he briefed the take off. Lined up and ready to go the weather radar took a quick sweep to the northwest were it painted nothing but light rain. In the rapidly brightening dawn we could see clear blue sky through the broken layer of clouds off the end of the runway. With the power set the plane lurched forward and several seconds later was clawing its way into the air.

Tower handed us off to approach and before I could check in there was a huge flash of light off to our right, directly between us and where we wanted to go. The back end of the weather was just passing to the north of the field. Approach kept us heading northwest for another 5 miles and then clear of the last cell we turned towards the northeast and Charlotte some 500 miles away. As we plunged back into the clouds and rain I took a quick look out my window to the west where the sky was clear and lightening with the rising sun, even if we couldn’t see it. It would be another 4 legs of flying and 12 hours later before we’d see clear skies again as we dropped the plane into Dayton for the end of our trip.