The Philidelphia Tower controller is starting to get frustrated. You can hear it in his voice when he tells the 5th plane that asks for their sequence that he just doesn’t know. When a 6th request for sequence comes in he obviously has had enough and responds, “gentlemen… I don’t know. So just stop asking, I’ll tell you when I do know.” When a controller uses the term “gentlemen” you know it’s going to be a long night.

He has good reason to be frustrated. It’s the International departure push and a lot of widebody aircraft are mixed in with the normal procession of Regional Jets and narrow body Boeing and Airbuses, all trying to blast off of the same piece of pavement at roughly the same time. To add to the mess there is a large line of weather moving towards the airport. I know I’m not the only one glancing off into the darkness to the west every time there is a huge flash of lightening amongst the clouds. We are all on borrowed time before the weather hits and the airport gets shut down. Due to weather related traffic jams up the road we are all sitting and waiting for our routings and sequences to be worked out by whoever does that sort of thing. In the meantime the weather inches closer.

Finally a heavy Airbus is given the green light to go. They pull out on the runway and power up and moments later they are just a pair of blinking strobe lights against the night sky on their way to Europe. Two more RJs are cleared in quick succession and then we are next. Once on the runway and cleared to go I let the radar take a quick sweep 40 miles down range. The right hand side of the screen is filled with a solid wall of red and yellow running from somewhere off to our right to the outer limits of the display. This is expected as I’ve been watching this storm on the radar loop on my phone. My plan is to head southwest for 40 miles or so and then turn to the west around the southern edge of the line of weather. My FO agrees that that’s our best bet and we roar off into the night.

Once air born and climbing I expand the radar range to 80 miles and start getting a little bit worried. The line of red still extends to the top of my display meaning that since I last looked at the radar on my phone the weather has slid farther south. This means we will have to go at least 100 miles out of our way and then 100 miles back to get around the line. In theory this is fine but we don’t really have the fuel on board for that sort of maneuver. Before we even have a chance to discuss options, the departure controller turns us northwest, directly into the weather and tells us that he has a small hole he has been able to slip two airplanes through and he’s vectoring us for the same spot.

The weather is 10 miles away and we have about 1 minute to decide if this is a good idea or not. As I roll the plane level the radar takes a sweep and shows what we are facing. The line is narrow, maybe 3 miles deep but stretches from one side of the display to the other. It is a mixture of reds and yellows with some stronger magenta returns scattered throughout. The hole ATC is pointing us towards is no more than a mile wide and is still showing bright yellow returns on the screen. Midway through the line the hole takes a sharp jog to the right and then back to the left before exiting out the back side of the weather. I take a deep breath and glance over at my FO. His face is illuminated by the almost continuous flashes of blue light in front of us. I don’t really like the idea, but it’s the best option we have for now and I decide to commit to punching through.

Philly Departure clears us to deviate left and right as needed and then hands us off to New York Center. They give us a clearance up to 23,000 feet and as the FO spins in the new number into the altitude alerter I glance up from the instruments and look out the front window. It looks like the entire world is filled with flashing blue and yellow flashes of lightning streamers dancing amongst the clouds in front of us. I request the continuous ignition on, quickly wipe my hand on my pants and take a tighter grip on the yoke. There is no way I trust the autopilot to fly through this. Passing through 9000 feet we hit the outer edge of the line and are committed.

I ask the FO to shut off his radar so mine has a faster update and then switch from normal scan down to sector mode, limiting the sweep to 45 degrees each side of the nose. At this point I am willing to trade the big picture view for a faster update of what’s right in front of us. As the plane starts to buffet and shake the hole defines itself on the display in front of me. I turn 5 degrees to the right, pointing the nose at the lightest colors I can see on the radar return. A huge flash of lightning off to the left makes me blink and I reach up and turn on the overhead dome light in an attempt to even the level of brightness out and protect my eyesight. I also have the FO turn off the landing lights as we pass through 10,000 but leave the electronic device sign on. There is no way the Flight Attendant should be standing up now.

The ride has now deteriorated to the point where I’m having second thoughts about punching through this hole. I realize, somewhat belatedly, that even if we clear the line without actually running into anything of substance (which the radar is saying we should be able to do) we are still flying through a sky filled with several million volts of electricity and it’s entirely possible that one of those streamers of light I’m seeing dancing out my window will reach out and touch us. As the radios start to get fuzzy from all the energy in the air I realize it’s too late to worry about that now. A particularly bright flash of lightning reveals a large buildup right in front of us but before I can even say anything we plunge into it and the plane lurches to the left and then drops to the right. I focus on keeping the wings level and count the seconds until we are through it.

The ride suddenly smoothes and the constant blue strobing diminishes. I glance over from my primary flight display to look at the radar returns. The scope is showing nothing but blackness ahead. We are clear of the weather. As if on cue New York Center clears us direct to the Appleton VOR, located just to the south of Pittsburg. I reach up and engage the autopilot while the FO enters the routing data into the flight computer. As the plane banks to the left and turns west I hold up my hand and look at it. Despite the back lighting of a million flashes of light in the clouds out the side window, I can’t tell if it’s shaking or not.

We are heading up the Hudson River at 4000 feet. My FO has his face pressed to the side window as the New York City Skyline rolls by less than three miles away. LaGuardia is landing to the South and departing to the East causing them to send airplanes up the river and then turn east somewhere north of Central park to join the runway final. It’s amazing view for the FO and anybody sitting on the right side of the airplane and for a moment I miss my former spot in the right seat.

I take a quick glance out my window on the left as the Hoboken, NJ waterfront passes by. It’s nowhere near as interesting as the other view. The trade off is the view out the left side coming down the Potomac River in DC is way better than the view out the right. I guess it’s a fair trade.

Time Square has passed by on the right and Central Park is now disappearing below the right hand side of the nose. I move the heading bug two degrees to the right to stay centered on the river and watch the George Washington Bridge drift by. Somewhere on the east bank of the river, out of view to me, hidden beneath the big gray bridge’s pilings is a little red lighthouse, made famous in a children’s book I barely remember my parents reading to me years ago.

This arrival is also the tale of two prisons. Several miles north of the George Washington Bridge sprawling along the eastern shore of the river is Sing Sing Prison. From the air it looks like a huge castle complex that has fallen into disrepair. At one time the biggest New York State prison it housed over 2000 inmates. I recently read a book by a reporter who spent a year as a Corrections Officer there.

We get a turn to the east from ATC and I watch as Sing Sing’s two big housing units, surrounded by high walls and towers, slide underneath the left wing. The Long Island Sound comes into view off the nose, and somewhere to the south in the hazy distance the approach end of Runway 22 is waiting for us. ATC clears us to join the ILS and I pass this info along to the autopilot. Unfortunately George (the autopilot) has other ideas and starts pitching and rolling abruptly up and to the left. I quickly disconnect the autopilot and instead of trying to reset everything elect to just hand fly the approach.

Rolling out, now heading towards the runway I take second to evaluate things. The ride is relatively smooth and the plane is handling ok. I call for 8 degrees of flaps and check our spacing with the plane we are following, shown as an empty blue diamond on the CRT display in front of me. The dot is 4 miles away and appearing to hold steady. I’m happy with what I see and call for 20 degrees of flaps and as the speed bleeds off, the landing gear and 30 degrees of flaps. Passing through 1500 feet I call for the last of the flaps and feel the plane slow as they move down off the back of the wing.

At 1000 feet I take quick look to the right and see the second prison of our tour. Riker’s Island, New York City’s local jail sits on an island at the very western edge of the Long Island Sound, just before it joins the East River. Riker’s is much more modern looking than Sing Sing although apparently it is falling apaprt and suffers from overcrowding. Its tan colored buildings are surrounded by rows of razor wire and guard towers. I’ve always wondered if prisoners see the planes as they pass by the windows just a mile or so away and wonder where they are going.

I shake off the thought and make a few adjustments to the thrust levers and the trim. A slight gust at 50 feet causes the nose to move to the left but I have everything back to where I want it to be by the time we are passing through 20 feet. The runway comes up as the thrust levers slide to idle and the plane thumps to the ground. This is New York so I make an effort to get it slowed down quickly and exit as soon as possible. Sure enough, we turn on to the taxi way, I can see the next arrival behind us is only a mile or so out, it’s shadow slipping along the walls and razor rolls of Riker’s Island.

I’m sitting in the exit row of one of our CRJ 200s heading South with the volume switch on my laptop almost all the way up and the Rolling Stones She’s A Rainbow cranking in my earphones. I’m desperately trying to drown out the screaming baby sitting behind me and so far I’m not having a lot of success. Some of may have to do with the fact that he’s also kicking the back of my seat every few seconds. Just one more reason I hate deadheading.

I flew this same route early yesterday morning except instead of sitting in the back I was up front, attempting to wake up as the eastern sky changed from black to dark blue to lighter blue and then finally yellow and orange as the sun came up over the horizon. It was much quieter then than it is now with the only sounds being the wind rushing by the fuselage at over 400 miles per hour and the periodic chatter on the radio as, one by one, aircraft woke from their night of sleep and checked in with ATC as they took to the early morning sky.

As the sun finally rose above the cloud layer on the horizon, illuminating the ground fog covering the West Virginia mountains below, I took a minute to update our fuel numbers and check the most recent weather in Charlotte. I was happy with the fuel but less than thrilled with the weather. Visibility was holding at less than a mile with low clouds and mist. With the current weather we were good to land and the rapidly rising sun would eventually burn off the fog, but it was possible the soup hanging over the runways could thicken in the meantime and make us go somewhere else. Like so many times before it would end up being a race between us and the weather. One that we probably would win, but just the possibility that we might not was enough to put me on edge and start the hunt for other places we could go.

100 miles out from Charlotte had us descending through 20,000 feet, crossing over Bristol, TN. The rolling peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains below stuck up out of the fog but the valleys were completely filled in with a white blanket of clouds and mist. I had the flight computer set to keep checking for the latest weather report from Charlotte and every few minutes a new one would pop up on screen. As we passed through 15,000 feet the most recent report showed ¼ mile visibility and ceilings of 100 feet, well below our minimums. However, in our favor were the actual Runway Visual Range readouts, basically a distance in feet that a special machine next to the runway can see downfield. While we need ½ mile (roughly 2800 feet) of visibility, if there is an RVR readout and the runway supports it we can go all the way down to 1800 RVR.

With the radio tuned in to Charlotte Approach Control and the plane dropping through 10,000 feet we passed abeam the airport heading south to join the ILS beam and land back towards the north. Visibility was still at ¼ mile but ATC was reporting the RVR at 2400 feet on the approach end and better than 6000 feet at midfield and at the departure end of the runway. The 2400 reading concerned me, but as of now were legal to continue and I called for 8 degrees of flaps as we slowed to 200 knots and descended to 5000 feet. As ATC turned us back towards the airport and gave us a clearance to join the ILS we watched the plane in front of us drop into the clouds and disappear.

A few minutes later we sank into the clouds as well and our whole world went gray. I took a quick look at the minimums for the approach again (just 210 feet above the ground) and the procedures for what to do if we didn’t see anything by then (a climbing turn up to 5000 feet and an eventual hold to figure out our options). By the time we passed through 1500 feet the plane was configured and we had been cleared to land on a runway that was somewhere in the fog in front of us. 1000 feet came and went with nothing to see. 500 feet passed by and I rotated my hand slightly on the thrust lever so my thumb rested on the Go Around button which in the event of a missed approach would turn off the autopilot, pitch my flight director up to 12 degrees above the horizon and generate a max thrust number “carrot” on the display to which I could push the thrust levers up to.

100 feet above our minimums (and 310 feet above the ground) my FO called off 100 above. I snuck a quick look forward into the mist but seeing nothing quickly went back to watching the flight instruments to make sure the autopilot was keeping up. At 210 feet above the ground the aircraft called out “MINUMUMS” just as my FO announced the approach lights in sight. Glancing forward I saw a single splotch of light off the nose which rapidly resolved itself into a straight line of lights leading forward into the fog. Another second passed by, seeming like an eternity, and the lights started to widen into beginning of the runway lighting.

The thumb on my left hand rotated slighting and put in one quick burst of elevator trim. Although there is a big red button on the yoke to disconnect the autopilot I find it much easier to use the trim button, which will do the same thing, to disconnect. The plane made its typing double chirping noise to alert us to the fact that the autopilot was no longer flying and I steadied my feet on the rudders as the plane called off 100 feet above the ground. By the time the plane called 50 feet I could see 3 or 4 white runway centerline lights stretching into the grayness ahead.

30 feet above the ground and I had the two degree nose up pitch I wanted to land with. Our world had become defined by the gray bubble on all sides of us and the rapidly approaching blur of pavement underneath the nose. The runway lights had little halos around them as they rushed by at 140 miles per hour. The plane called off 20 and 10 in rapid succession as I took out the last of the power on the engines. There was as slight pause and then a slight bump as the main landing gear settled to the ground some 60 feet behind us. Seconds later, as we began to decelerate I lowered the nose gear to the ground and popped the thrust reversers.

The blur of lights began to turn into individual lights evenly spaced down the runway as we slowed down to a more manageable speed. I stowed the thrust reverers as I gently applied the brakes. The runway exit materialized out of the mist ahead of us and as the plane slowed more I moved my hand from the yoke to the steering tiller which would get us the rest of the way to the gate, waiting for us somewhere across the fog shrouded ramp.

30 hours later I am once again heading for the same ramp, except now there is no fog in sight. The early afternoon sun is bright through the cabin windows as we descend over the North Carolina countryside. The baby behind me has calmed down some but I’m guesses as soon as he’s forced to put his seatbelt back on during landing the screams are going to start up again. As if on cue the seatbelt and Electronic Device signs illuminate above me. Here we go again…

For the second time in three days we are blasting off into the dark sky with the flightdeck clock pointing to numbers well past midnight. Two nights ago it was the concrete of Runway 27L in Philly dropping below the wheels as we finally pointed the airplane’s nose towards Columbia and the end of the day. Weather had left us stranded in Akron for 3 hours before we finally were released to Philly, just 40 minutes away. Minus one small line of weather we pushed through over Harrisburg, the flight was fine, but once on the ground we became part of one of the traffic jams Philly is famous for as some planes tried to make it to their gates while others struggled to get out but were forced to wait after the airport ran out of real estate on which to park planes waiting for the runway. An hour after touching down we finally pulled up to the gate and unloaded our passengers 4 hours later than scheduled.

This evening has not gone as badly, but still, here it is 12:30 in the morning and the wheels are coming up into the wells and the FMS is showing 35 minutes back to Dayton. At least tonight we don’t have any passengers on board and the only people waiting for my FO and I are our respective better halves and the mechanics in Dayton who are waiting to get their hands on the plane for the night. Passing through 2000 feet the FO rolls the plane into a gently bank to the right towards the radio beam being generated by the Parkersburg, WV VOR 60 miles away. As the plane keeps climbing and rolls level the lights of Clarksburg, WV fade into the night behind us.

Over twelve hours ago I was on a deadhead flight down to Charlotte to start my day. After meeting up with the crew and loading our passengers we took off and headed west, settling in for the 2+ hour flight out to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Minus some weather west of the Charlotte area the flight was smooth, and 2 hours after taking off I settled the plane back on to the ground in Arkansas. Due to Scheduling forgetting to load Crew Meals on board we took a quick meal break there, where I managed to find a less than appealing turkey sandwich, before loading up 50 passengers to drag back to Charlotte.

The weather that we’d flown around on the way out had now taken up residence just to the southwest of the airport and was moving steadily towards the field. As we joined the final for the runway tower told us to keep our speed up as the storm was only 2 miles away and rapidly approaching. The radar confirmed this with a splotchy red and yellow blob displayed just to the south of the field on my MFD. Once below the clouds we could clearly see the rain line on the ground to the south. My concerns about gust fronts and heavy rain reducing visibility, and the potential lack of an escape path never materialized and we touched down just as the first rain drops started to fall. On the taxi in the storm hit and of course lightning closed the ramp, forcing us to sit and wait for 30 minutes until the weather passed and operations started up again.

Once at the gate and unloaded I grabbed my stuff and headed to another gate where my flight and crew back to Dayton was waiting. I’d originally been scheduled to fly with this crew all day, but do to some other issues I’d been reassigned the Fayetteville trip while they went to Louisville and back. Having arrived back in Charlotte well before the weather they’d had time to board the plane and get set up. Now they were just waiting on me and two other passengers who had also been forced to sit out the storm on the ramp. With the three of us on board we were shortly pushing off the gate and taxiing out. Due to the weather a lot of other flights were running behind and there was no line up for the runway. 5 minutes after pushing back we were rolling down the runway and blasting off. Tower gave us a turn to the west and handed us over to Departure who gave us another turn to the north and towards home.

Once back in Dayton, instead of heading for my car and home, I turned right and dragged my bag over to the hangar where another plane was waiting to head over to Clarksburg, WV for a yearly heavy maintenance check. In Clarksburg, another of our 50 seaters was currently waiting to come back to Dayton after having been almost completely taken apart, cleaned, repaired and put back together. It’s always interesting getting a plane right out of a Heavy Check, but doing it at the end of a 12 duty hour, 8 flying hour day, can be extra exciting.

The flight over was routine, with the airport appearing out of the hills as I turned the plane onto final. I learned to fly just to the north of the field, and I had to compartmentalize the memories of my early Cessna flights while trying to avoid the last ridgeline before the runway. With that taken care and the wheels back on the ground, I taxied the plane towards the Bombardier Maintenance hangar while my FO closed our flight plan with Cleveland Center. An escort was waiting for us and after we’d parked the plane and shut it down he walked us over to the plane we’d be taking back out and then waiting for us while we did a very thorough set of preflight checks and inspections to insure everything was where it should be. With everything in order we started up, taxied out and then took off into the darkness.

As the lights of Clarksburg dim behind us, the West Virginia hills give way to the Ohio River floodplain and the lights of Parkersburg. A very bored sounding Cleveland Center controller gives us direct Dayton and then goes back to doing what every they were doing before we interrupted their evening. I eat the packet of M&Ms I’d been saving all day for this moment. As I savor the last one, the lights of Columbus are sliding under the nose and we are handed over to Dayton who clears us directly to the airport for a visual approach. As we descend over the quiet Ohio countryside, out in the darkness to the south, a pair of strobe lights appears and the tired sounding voice of the FO on the last Charlotte to Dayton flight of the night checks in with Approach. My FO points out that they probably got caught up in the weather issues Charlotte had and hence are running almost two hours late.

We line up for the right runway while the company traffic aligns themselves with the left one. We touch down about the same time and while they begin their taxi to the terminal to unload their passengers, I take the plane back from the FO and taxi to the maintenance hangar. As we roll up out front a mechanic comes outside with some chalks to throw around on the wheels. Before the engines even stop turning a mob of mechanics are swarming around the airplane with flashlights to make sure that Clarksburg put everything back the way they should of. I trust them to do their job and turn away from the plane, dragging my bag behind me, through the hangar and Operations Control and eventually out to the parking lot where my ride is waiting and my day will finally end.