The dense, gray fog is passing by the window, briefly illuminated by the blue tinted landing lights, before it passes back over the wing and disappears into the darkness. This is a slightly different than normal view for me as due to a scheduling mess up I’m tucked back in the window seat at row 6 instead of up front. In the last few minutes the chatter coming from the half filled passenger cabin has tapered off to almost silence as we’ve descend into the fog and those who for the whole flight had ignored the outside world now have their noses pressed up against the glass watching the swirling nothingness roll by.

I realize I shouldn’t even be here right now and if the day had gone as planned I’d be blasting through the same fog but 100 miles to the east and doing it sitting in my normal seat up front. Scheduling called me out earlier in the day to deadhead down to Charlotte to pick up an airplane to fly to Clarksburg, WV where we have heavy maintenance done. Once in Clarksburg we were to pick up another plane that had just come out maintenance and bring it back to Dayton. Sometime after my FO and I got on our deadhead to Charlotte somebody actually thought to call Clarksburg to check if the plane there was ready to go and discovered (regrettably to nobody’s surprise) it wasn’t.

Hence the reason for my phone ringing in the middle of a quick dinner in Charlotte to inform me that instead of heading to Clarksburg we would be getting back on a plane to Dayton. My FO joked that it was awfully nice of the company to fly us to Charlotte for dinner but he’d just as soon stayed at home on his couch. Unfortunately, those of us on reserve don’t really get that option. When the company says go, we go and often times have to pick up the pieces later on.

I manage to snag an empty row on the flight home and spend the time dozing until I heard the engines spooling down and feel the nose pitch over at the beginning of our descent into Dayton. I’ve flown this route more than a few times and as I look out the window, the patches of ground lighting that should be there aren’t. The sweep of the Ohio River isn’t off the right. The bright lights of Cincinnati aren’t ahead. Instead, a solid blanket of fog covers the ground. Barely visible through the fog are patches of white and gold light, shining through from the obscured surface.

The Captain makes a quick PA informing us that we are starting our descent into Dayton and that for now anyway, we have the visibility to land. If the visibility drops much more we will be forced to hold for a bit and then probably head down to Cincinnati, which, while fogged in as well, has better visibility. In the darkness I roll my eyes. The same thing happened to me the night before as I was commuting in to start my work week. We needed 1800 feet of visibility to land and Dayton was bouncing back and forth between 800 and 1200. After holding for 30 minutes we headed south and landed in Cincy, where they promptly canceled the flight and sent the crew to a hotel, leaving 50 passengers and one unhappy jumpseater (me) to try to get up to Dayton some other way. I ended up renting a car and driving home, arriving at 1 in the morning. Tonight I’m in better shape as I am actually on Company time meaning they’ll have to give me a room or figure out how to get me home if we do divert and cancel.

We continue our descent towards the ground as the lighted tops of radio antennas pass by, sticking up out of the fog like buoys in the sea. There is a gentle whirring noise and I watch as the slats roll off the front edge of the wing. Seconds later there is a slight pitch change as the flaps slide out the back of the wing. And then we drop into the clouds and the cabin goes quiet.

In the silence I glance around at the people sitting near me. The tension of putting their lives into the hands of two unknown people and a complex airframe is clearly visible on many faces. I remind myself that flying is not a normal thing for the vast majority of people. Even the million milers are out of their element and have to trust that everything will go alright. I have no safety concerns. I know both the Captain who I flew with as a First Officer and the First Officer whom I’ve flown with as a Captain. Both are skilled and smart pilots. They are Professionals. I know our maintenance is top notch and that the aircraft is designed for tough conditions. I know that the probability of anything going wrong is so small that it’s not even worth worry about, and further more I know that if something does go wrong there is nothing I can do about it so worrying is a waste of time. I smile to myself as I realize my biggest concern is that if we divert somewhere else I won’t get home tonight to eat the cookies I baked earlier in the day.

A glow starts to materialize out of the gloom around us. Because I can’t look forward from my passenger seat, I can’t see anything but I know that the guys up front are seeing the wonderful, welcoming sight of the runway approach lights forming out of the fog ahead and solidifying into the line of lead in lights and the runway end lighting. There is a pulsing quality to the light as we pass over the “rabbit”, the string of strobe lights that start at the end of the runway and stretch back into the darkness, bringing ships like ours in from the land of the lost. Suddenly the engine noise decreases and the nose comes up into the final flare attitude as the runway edge lighting coming into view out the side window.

The plane settles to the runway with a whisper and we begin to decelerate. Slowed to a safe taxi speed I watch as a runway exit emerges out of the fog and the plane turns to the right and into a world light by the blue glow of taxiway lighting.

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.

There comes a point in time when the body becomes so mentally tired it starts to physically shut down. I’m not sure when I hit that point yesterday, but I do remember trying to put the cap back on my bottle of water and having trouble getting the threads to match up right. By then we were on our last leg and the airport beacon was in sight and this gave the momentary boost needed to complete the flight.

The day had started 17 hours earlier with me waking up to my alarm at 8:45 in Columbia, SC. Our van time wasn’t until 1:30pm, but the hotel has a really good breakfast which they serve until 10am, so I forced myself up early to get some food. In the end I was glad I did, but as I chowed down on bacon, eggs, potatoes, fresh fruit and a VERY nicely made waffle (if I do say so myself) I was wondering if I would have been better sleeping in a bet.

We got in the van at 1:30 under hazy skies. As the van pulled out of the parking lot there was lighting visible to the south west, and about halfway to the airport the raindrops started falling. By the time we pulled up in front of the terminal the rain was pretty much blowing sideways and despite being under a roof to unload, we managed to get a bit wet. We passed through security without any problems, and just as we were clearing the checkpoint the power to the airport died. Backup generators kicked in within a few seconds providing slightly dimmed lighting, but interestingly enough, the screening machines and metal detectors weren’t connected to the backup power and the checkpoint had to shut down until power was restored. That was our first (and last for a while) bit of good timing for the day.

We wandered out to the gate only to find that the ramp was shut down due to lighting, and despite our plane being on the ground, it couldn’t taxi in and unload. And it stayed that way for just under an hour. There was one cell that was just sitting on top of the airport going nowhere, and in fact, building in intensity. Finally after an hour of waiting the weather moved off enough for the rampers to head back out and park the plane. They unloaded their people in a heavy rain and we got aboard as the other crew got off.

The rain stopped long enough for our passengers to board, and then as a second cell started to pass to the north of the field we hurriedly started out engines and taxied out before the ramp shut down again. Once out at the runway we were number three for departure, with the low level windshear system reporting potential shearing. The two planes in front of us (another CRJ and a PC12) blasted off with no problem and we in turn were cleared for takeoff. It was the FOs leg and I set the power for him. We stretched out our rotation speed to the fastest we could so we would have as much airspeed as possible once off the ground (in case we encountered the windshear and lost some speed). Sure enough through about 200 feet we got a high-low tone followed by the computer screaming “WINDSHEAR. WINDHSEAR”. Also the red word “windshear” came up on the displays as well as the AMI eyebrows. Oh yeah, and our speed dropped off about 20 knots.

The FO and I raced to see who could push in max thrust on the throttles first (I beat him by about a millisecond) and he kept the plane climbing. Fortunately the shear wasn’t too bad and we managed to force our way up to 500 feet where we exited the shear and started climbing normally. Once stable ATC gave us a turn to the west around the weather that was causing the problem and then we headed towards Charlotte. The rest of the flight was uneventful, but we both commented that that was the first time either one of us had seen a red windshear that wasn’t just a computer glitch.

We touched down in Charlotte with calm winds and I took the plane and taxied to the gate. Once there we quick turned (as we were scheduled for only a 40 minute break and we were already 50 minutes late) and I headed us out towards Montgomery. The weather the most of the way out there was pretty good, although we had to make one deviation just to the west of Athens, GA. There was a pretty good line of weather to the south west of MGM, but it looked like (from my phone’s radar loop) that it was going to stay south and not be a problem.

We started the descent into Montgomery with the winds right down the runway at 10 knots. I had the field visual about 10 miles out and they cleared us for a visual approach. At about 4 miles out tower cleared us to land and advised us that while the winds on the airport were still at 10 knots and down the runway the sensors at the far west of the field were reporting wind gusts to 35 knots and from the south (which was 100 degrees off the runway heading). Our good timing from before was about to leave us.

2 miles from the airport tower reported the winds were the same but the midfield wind sensor was now reporting heavy gusts too. Going through about 600 feet the plane took a huge lurch to the left into the wind and dropped about 100 feet. I got it back under control but found that where before I was pointed right at the runway, I was now crabbed about 45 degrees to the left to correct for the wind. The plane was also bucking like crazy and at 400 feet I was just thinking about maybe going around when the bottom fell out, and for the second time that day the red windshear AMI came up and the plane started yelling at us.

A low level arrival windshear go around is accomplished by holding whatever configuration you are in until you are clear of the windshear. If the flaps are full and the gear is out, you leave them there despite the extra drag they may cause (in a normal go around, the flaps immediately go to 8 degrees and the gear comes up). That way if you have inadvertent ground contact you have the gear out to cushion the plane. I got the power in to go around by about 300 feet and we leveled around 200 feet before starting to climb. I’d be carrying a bit of extra speed so despite losing about 15 knots we never got much slower than our approach speed. My FO called the go around to tower and he climbed us to 3000 feet. Through about 1000 feet we came out the back side and started picking up speed. I called for the flaps to 8 and the gear up and actually had to pull the power back as to not overspeed the flaps as they came up.

Once level at 3000 feet we checked our fuel and found, to nobody’s surprise we had enough fuel to wait about 15 minutes and then would have to head to our alternate of Birmingham. I’d actually joked about this while we were sitting at the gate in Charlotte. I commented that giving us 10 minutes of holding fuel doesn’t do us any good if there is just one cell sitting on the field and we have to wait it out. If we could wait 30 minutes it might be gone, but unless we time it just right, it isn’t going to go anywhere in 15 minutes. That was the case here as we waiting for our 15 minutes and found that the winds on the surface were still gusting to 35. At that point we could have waited another 5 minutes, but if we waited 5 minutes and then went and shot the approach and had to go missed again, we wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it to BHM safely, so we decided to bug out to our alternate.

20 minutes later I touched the plane down on Birmingham’s 12,000 foot runway and taxied in to the gate. They parked us and told us that Dispatch had called them and said to get us fueled and heading back to MGM as soon as possible. I called dispatch and after he voiced his surprise that we didn’t get in (“everybody else made it… I don’t know why you didn’t hold longer and then go in”) which I tactfully ignored and pointed out maybe if they had given us more than 10 minutes of holding fuel we might have gotten in, he said the winds were dying down there and we should be good to go. I agreed with that assessment and 30 minutes later we were air born again. A quick 20 minutes flight (through a rainbow no less) had us back on final into MGM where the winds were in fact calm now. I managed a nice landing (I figured I owed our passengers that much) and taxied in. Interestingly enough, just about all of them were ok with taking the diversion and were very thankful to eventually get to MGM. Looking back on it, I think those few seconds on final the first time around were much rougher then I originally thought, as I was busy fighting the plane during that time and didn’t realize how nasty it actually was.

From Montgomery we headed east back to Charlotte with my FO making a nice landing with a huge thunderstorm bearing down from the west. About 6 planes made it in behind us before the field was hit with heavy rain and wind gusts of over 35 miles per hour. After clearing the runway I taxied as fast as I could (a VERY brisk walk) to try to get our people off the plane before the weather hit. In a perfect world (which it at that point it certainly wasn’t) we would unload, and get inside before the weather hit, giving us time to go get dinner while we waited for the ramp to reopen.

Of course, it didn’t happen that way. Our gate was occupied, and we waited 5 minutes for them to push and clear out. We then pulled in only to wait another 3 minutes for a gate agent to show up. With the gate agent in place, the traffic lights yellow and lighting striking the western airport boundary our passengers started to get off. We had about 30 and the first 10 made it ok as the rain drops started to fall, but then the ramp lights went red. There was a moment or two of indecision while another 10 passengers managed to get off the plane, but then the gate agent said that was it and pushed our door shut trapping 10 passengers and us three crew members on board. And there we sat. For 1 hour and 35 minutes.

Once the ramp reopened we unloaded our remaining 10 passengers and as soon as they were off and the rampers had pulled the bags out of the bin our next batch of passengers were heading out the door. About 20 minutes later we had the aircraft buttoned up and were pushing back to head down to Panama City. I honestly don’t remember much of the taxi out. I think there were storms still in the area, and we had to bob and weave a bit to get going southbound, but at that point I was just watching the distance to go number spin down for 400 miles to zero.

Tower had long since closed when I finally put the wheels down on Runway 14 at PFN. We cleared the runway and of course couldn’t reach JAX Center to close our flight plan so once we were parked at the gate and the FO went to do his walk around I called the wonderful people at Lockhead Martin (who now operate the Flight Service Stations) and had them close it for us. Mission accomplished I shut down the plane and we headed for the hotel van. 20 minutes later we were at the hotel and somehow I managed to stumble up to my room and make the necessary preparations for getting into bed.

I really don’t want to do a day like that again any time soon.

Here’s the flight through the rainbow. I have a video clip too, which maybe I’ll post later

There seems to be some unofficial rule that the last leg of a trip can’t go smoothly. Whether it’s being delayed at the gate for some reason, having to deal with an enroute MX problem, or weather at the destination, it just seems that you can arrive early every leg of a trip and still manage to get home late.

Last night our final leg was from Philly back to Dayton. We came into Philly up the east coast from Columbia, SC, and despite get slowed and vectored a bit we managed to get into Philly a few minutes early. I grabbed a “small” bowl of ice cream (which the lady piled with about 6 scoops) and we boarded up. The release had no alternate (which we need when the weather is bad or forecasted to be bad at our destination) so that was a good sign. However, upon actually looking at the weather there was a temporary forecast from 9pm until 11pm (with our arrival time at 10pm) for 1 mile visibility and thunderstorms. Interesting…

I called dispatch to get an alternate put on and was told the weather was just at Indy at that point and moving east. That didn’t sound good at all. A quick look at a radar picture on my Treo showed a very solid line stretching from the Kentucky-Indiana border north to just south of Toledo, Ohio. That didn’t look good at all. It was pretty much going to be a race between us and the weather to Dayton. We had about 500 miles to cover, and would be doing it at about 500 miles per hour. The weather had about 60 miles to cover and was currently moving around 50 miles per hour. But factor in that we still had to finish boarding, taxi out and then take off, things weren’t looking too good.

Our alternate was Columbus, which while scheduled to remain clear for the time we needed, is east of Dayton, which means, if we couldn’t get into Dayton and went back to Columbus, we’d have to sit there while the weather continued working east, over the top of Columbus, and only then could we launch back for Dayton.

With all that in mind we loaded up our 39 passengers and taxied out. Fortunately there was no line and we were quickly air born heading west into the sunset. Through 10,000 feet I turned on the autopilot and started monitoring our fuel. We had original planned to fly to Dayton at 30,000 feet but Cleveland Center stopped us at 28,000 as 30,000 had been reported to be choppy. 28,000 wasn’t very good either so we descended down to 26,000 which remained tolerable.

Many of the airports we fly into have digital weather reporting systems which means we can get the weather, no matter how far away we are. Other’s only broadcast it over a radio frequency so you generally have to be within 100 miles of the airport before you can hear it. Dayton is one of these airports. However, Indy has digital weather, so just east of Pittsburgh I sent a request for the weather at IND.

The interesting thing in the report is that the storm had pretty much moved on as the wind had died down and the barometric pressure was back up to 29.89. The whole string of C’s translates to “Frequent Lighting, In Cloud, Cloud to Cloud, Cloud to Ground”. Not a good place to be. But, that was actually the back side of the storm, as the weather itself wasn’t too bad (winds only gusting to 17 knots and light rain). So if the storm had already left IND, that meant it was now heading towards Dayton.

In flight our radar is limited to what is right in front of the nose out to about 80 miles ahead of us, so sitting almost 150 miles from Dayton at 22,000 feet there was no way to know how close the weather really was. With that in mind I sent a message to dispatch asking how it was looking.

It’s never a good sign when dispatch tells you to fly fast.

About 80 miles out and descending through 18,000 feet just to the east of Columbus (which was completely clear) the radar started painting red swatches just to the north west of Dayton, and we could start to see lighting out the front windows. Indy center told us it looked like the weather was currently about 15 miles from the airport. This was going to be VERY close. I kept the speed up and Indy gave us direct the field. They even worked a hand off direct to Dayton Approach for us so we could get vectored right in. I held 310 knots until they brought us through 10,000 feet and then slowed to 250 knots. The lighting was almost a constant glow to the north west and the red on the radar now showed purple centers. The nearest cell to the airport was about 3 miles away as we descended through 5000 feet. The ride was still mostly smooth and I kept the speed up. A Delta Connection CRJ made a short approach in front of us and was cleared to land with the winds currently from 240 degrees (right down the runway) at 15 knots. As he taxied clear we descended through 3000 feet.

The weather wasn’t actually at the airport yet, so we’d been able to see the beacon and the runways for almost 20 miles and had been cleared for a visual approach. There was a pretty solid line of red on the radar stretching from just to the south west of the field, all the way around to the north. Through 3000 feet the ride became very choppy and when we were handed off to tower they cleared us to land with the winds now from 310 degrees at 35 knots.

At this point the airplane was getting pretty difficult to control and the airspeed was fluctuating about 20 knots up and down due to the bumps. I did some quick thinking in my head and ran the pros (not very many: the airport was still visible, the winds, while strong, were not gusting (yet) and were (barely) within the legal limit of 27 knots of crosswind) and the cons (lots of them: the ride was falling apart, the wind had shifted almost 90 degrees and doubled in velocity in just 4 minutes, even though there weren’t gusts yet, there may be at any time, and if we had to go missed, which with the current winds and the bumps was a very good possibility, there really was no place to go because of the line of weather). I took one more look at the radar picture, and then up at the airport which was routinely being illuminated by the lightning now just a mile away and decided discretion in the better part of valor and told my FO we were getting out of there.

Tower gave us a climbing left turn back to the south and then east, away from the weather. As we started to turn the ride got so bad the autopilot was have trouble figuring out what to do so I turned it off and hand flew back to the east. After about 30 seconds of not really being able to see the instruments due to the bumps we broke into smoother air. In the middle of the turn as I was trying to find outside references to fly by (it was dark, but still visual outside) I saw a bright green flash of light on the ground in front of us. Somewhere in the back of my mind it registered that that was the Laser Light show that they do at night down town after a Dayton Dragons game ends and wondered who had won. I quickly suppressed that random thought and got back to flying the plane. Once things calmed down a bit I reengaged the autopilot and took a quick look at our fuel.

The number I saw was pretty good and gave us about 45 minutes before we’d be at our minimum reserves. I thought briefly about holding somewhere and waiting for the weather to move off the field, but because we were to the east, and that’s the way the storm was moving, we’d have to punch through it to get back to the airport, and I really didn’t want to do that. The other option was climb up higher and try to poke our way through to the other side and then sneak back into Dayton from the west, but from what I’d seen on the way in from the radar there wasn’t too many holes to be found. With all that in mind we headed east back to Columbus.

It took all of 15 minutes to get lined up for 28R into CMH where I managed a pretty nice landing. Columbus Ops didn’t sound too happy to see us (nobody wants an extra plane on short notice) but gave us a gate. Once parked and shut down I took a trick from a playbook of Captain I’d flown with in the past and used the FA’s PA to talk to the passengers so I could at least make eye contact with them instead of hiding out up front. After letting them know what was going on (actually, I said, I’m not sure what’s going on yet, but give me a few minutes and I’ll let you know) I called dispatch who said the weather was pretty much breaking up and we should be able to launch right back to Dayton and have no problem.

That didn’t sound right to me and a quick look at the radar map showed that if anything the line had strengthened slightly, and although it was breaking up to the north there was no way for us to get from Columbus back to Dayton. I called dispatch back and told them that I wasn’t see what they were seeing and I was planning on sitting it out in Columbus until the weather blew over and then heading back to Dayton. They said that was fine (although I’m thinking they may have called me some names after I hung up) so I informed the people of our plan, and told them that I would get them off the plane just as soon as the gate agent came back from unloading another plane. With the exception of one guy who complained that he was being held hostage on the aircraft and DEMANDED to get off, everybody else was pretty calm. Fortunately the gate agent showed up in about 15 minutes and out passengers headed up to the boarding area to sit it out.

About 45 minutes later the line came through Columbus, and even parked at the gate the plane bounced around a bit in the wind, which according to the tower was gusting to 41 knots. After the line moved past we re boarded our people (minus about 5 who chose to stay in CMH) and taxied out. The the wind was down to about 5 knots and despite some lighting up to the north the radar sweep we took right before I powered up showed nothing to the west.

The climb out from CMH was pretty smooth and despite some light rain the visibility was good, with Dayton coming into sight as we climbed through about 5000 feet. There was a few patches of light chop enroute, but for the most part it stayed smooth, and 14 minutes after taking off I put the wheels back down on 24L in Dayton in calm winds. A quick taxi to the gate and we were parked and shut down at 12:05, just two hours and five minutes later then planned.

While sitting on the ground in CMH and while driving home from the airport I was second guessing myself a bit, about if I should have continued the approach into Dayton the first time, or if I should have maybe broken it off sooner. Who knows. It came out ok in the end, and I realized these are the sort of PIC decisions I’m going to have to make for the rest of my career when ever I’m in the left seat. Part of the job I guess.