Life gets busy as we descend through 12,000 feet. I scramble to finish loading our landing speeds into the computer, check with the flight attendant to see if she needs anything, call operations to let them know we will be there soon, and keep an eye on my FO who is trying is best to get us down and keep the airspeed somewhat stable. We hit the top layer of clouds at 11,000 and I take a quick break from punching in data to turn on the wing and cowl anti ice switches. It’s early May, but Mother Nature never got the word about the whole April Lion/Lamb thing.

We’ve spend the afternoon bumping along over a solid overcast and taking off and landing in winds approach 40 miles per hour. This is our final leg of the night and in typical fashion it’s probably going to be the worst. Akron is reporting winds out of the west at 25 miles per hour with periodic gusts approach 35 miles per hour. That’s not a huge issue on its own, but their western runway is closed for construction meaning we will have to land to the north or south with a huge crosswind. I run some quick trig in my head (with the help of a cheat sheet published in our speed book) and realize with the current winds being reported, we will be legal by about 3 miles per hour of wind.

The plane issues a single chime as we drop through the clouds to advise us that it senses ice accumulating on the airframe. A quick look at the windshield wipers confirm this as the quickly crust over with milky white rime ice. I double check that the anti ice switches are on and hot engine bleed air is heading out to the wings, which it is. However, in order to descend and keep the speed back my FO has the thrust levers back at almost idle and we are in danger of not producing enough air to keep the wings hot so I tell him to put out the spoilers. The plane slows quickly, which allows him to increase the power, which in turn increases the hot airflow to the wing to keep the ice off. It’s an awkward process that one would think wouldn’t be necessary in a jet made in Canada.

We pop out of the clouds over a green rolling Ohio country side. The ride gets bumpy as we descend through 4000 feet. I’d already warned our Flight Attendant to get seated early and as the plane starts to pitch and roll I can hear her slamming her jumpseat into place behind us. The FO already has the continuous ignition armed for both engines so all we can do now is press onward. The approach control asks if we have the airport at about our 10 oclock and 10 miles away. I see it, double check the FO has it as well (which he does) and report that in fact we do see it. We are cleared for a visual approach and handed over to the tower controller.

My FO dumps the autopilot and turns towards the field. I’ve got the radar on but it’s not painting anything. About 5 miles on the other side of the airport it looks like somebody has dumped a piece of dry ice into a swimming pool and it takes me a few seconds to realize what I am looking at. Despite the radar’s negative returns there is evidently a heavy squall line to the west of the field that is dumping rain on the ground. The surface winds are blowing the rain along the front, creating the billowing steam like quality I’d first seen. I do some quick math and realize we should get to the field before it does.

As we drop through 1500 feet the gear comes out and the last of the flaps lock into place. Tower reports the winds at 20 knots with gusts approaching 30. We are still just within our legal limit. At 1000 feet he again calls the winds, this time at 15 knots. Hoping we are going to get lucky and land during a lull we continue onward. I consider asking for another wind check at 500 feet but decide ignorance is bliss and instead keep an eye on our airspeed which is holding steady. At 300 feet we take a couple of hard hits, probably from the surface wind rolling over a small hill next to the airport, but my FO managed to keep the wings level and we keep heading towards the wet runway ahead of us.

At 100 feet everything is looking good. 50 feet and we are flaring. The plane seems to almost hover and tries to slide sideway, pushed by the crosswind, but the FO kicks the rudder in a bit more and we keep moving straight and lightly settle onto the pavement. The reversers pop out as designed and we quickly slow to a safe speed. I take the controls back and clear the runway just as the first drops of rain from the rapidly advancing squall line start to fall.

The remnants of a New Year’s Eve full moon still hang brightly in the eastern sky, faded only slightly over the last two nights. Below, through a tattered layer of clouds the lights of Washington, DC stretch to the north. We are dropping though 6000 feet on the way down to 3000 and the air is smooth. Overhead the millions of stars I’ve been gazing at on our ride north from Charlotte start to fade as the ground lighting washes them out. Ahead, the Potomac River cuts a path of darkness across the face of the City. Nestled on the western edge of the river, 15 miles away and rapidly approaching are the runways of Washington National Airport and the end of our day.

We pass through the scattered layer of clouds at 5000 feet and within seconds the ride goes from smooth as glass to uncomfortably rough. As the plane rocks hard to the left and then drops to the right, I can hear our Flight Attendant slamming drawers shut in the galley behind us. My FO reaches up and arms the continuous ignition as we take a particularly large lurch to the left. The surface winds are reportedly gusting to 45 miles per hour and here at 4000 feet they are steady at 60mph. For the next 2 minutes I focus on sawing back and forth on the thrust levers to keep the airspeed somewhat stable. As we pass through 2000 feet and fly over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, National Tower clears us to circle to and land on Runway 33. I let out a theatric sigh and mumble “why me?” My FO manages to laugh between the bumps as he goes to work on the Flight Management Computer to load in the new approach.

When the winds are out of the north the normal arrival to DC is to fly up the Potomac River and straight on to Runway 1. Sometimes if they are trying to pump out a lot of departures they will have smaller aircraft circle to Runway 33, which is much shorter and involves a low level turn to align with the runway. Landing 33 can be a fun challenge but if you aren’t ready for it, or don’t make the turn at the right time, it can get a little ugly and it’s not unusual, especially on a windy day, to see airplanes powering up midway through the turn and breaking off to try again.

There is no traffic departing Runway 1 but because of the very strong winds out of the West, tower has given us Runway 33 to be more aligned with the wind. It’s a considerate gesture and in the end will probably make for a better approach. Despite that, it’s causing me to rethink the whole approach and instead of flying a simple straight in final with the autopilot following the ILS to the runway, I’m going to have to hand fly a visual pattern across the Naval Base and then back across the Potomac to the runway, all while getting buffeted by 35 knots of wind.

I dump the autopilot while the FO finishes entering the approach into the FMC. After a few seconds the computer decides it likes things and generates a small white snowflake on my display to give me some vertical guidance. Because the approach won’t be flown in a straight line the FMC can’t help out and the lateral path is all on me. I decide I’ll take what help I can get and call for the last of the flaps as we pass through 1600 feet.

The runway is easy to see despite the darkness and I try to picture a curving path that begins from where we are and arcs downward towards the end of the runway. It’s easy to see in my mind, but with the gusting wind it’s going to be a whole different matter to fly it. My FO calls off 1000 feet and I start the final turn to align us with the runway. I briefly mention that if I don’t have the plane on the ground in the first 1500 feet of pavement we are going around and trying again. He agrees and then calls off 500 feet above the river. By now we are aligned with both the runway and the wind which means at least the plane is now going where the nose is pointed. At 200 feet I make a small pitch adjustment I decide I like how things are going. At 100 feet the power starts to come out.

The white aiming point blocks, painted 1000 feet down the runway appear frozen in the windshield meaning we are tracking straight towards them. The plane calls out 50 feet and I pull the thrust levers back to the stops. In the sudden quiet I can hear the wind buffeting by the windshield as the nose comes up in the flare. We float for a few seconds and then settle to the pavement. I’m on the brakes before I can get the thrust reversers deployed, but then realize our ground speed was very slow on landing because of the strong headwind and we’ll have no problem getting stopped. At 80 knots I stow the reversers and increase the brake pressure. The plane slows to a normal taxi speed just as the runway exit comes up on the left.

As we taxi towards our parking spot my FO turns off the landing lights, turning the pavement in front of us a deep black. Despite the decrease in lighting I can still see debris and trash flying through the air, clearly illuminated by the taxiway lighting. It’s a nasty night out there and I’m glad to be done.

All it takes is a quick look down at the difference between our airspeed and our groundspeed to tell that Fall is here again. Despite pushing through the air at 410 knots we are managing barely 300 knots across the ground. The great river in the sky is pushing us backwards at over 100 knots. Below the Kentucky countryside slowly crawls by below a scattered layer of puffy white clouds. Recent heavy rains have turned the fields green and the rivers brown. From our vantage point at 26,000 feet the rolling hills flatten towards the distant horizon and our destination of Lexington.

It is day 3 of 4 and my first 4 day trip in a while. Reserve life means that I mostly fly a patchwork of sick calls and maintenance flights. This week I am covering for a captain who called in sick. The FO I’m flying with tells me that this other captain has some sort of chronic condition and has temporarily lost his medical, causing me to realize for about the thousandth time how thin a reality this job can be.

Today started in Akron with a deadhead down to Charlotte after a short 10 hours of rest. From there we picked up our aircraft and pointed the nose to the north west and Lexington. Once we have deposited our passengers in Bluegrass Country we will turn around and head back to Charlotte and then on to Charleston, WV and the end of our day. On paper this day is very easy. Throw in gusting winds and bumpy rides and it has the potential of rapidly lengthening into infinity.

ATC gives us a descent to a lower (hopefully less windy) altitude. The mileage to go distance slowly clicks down to a number of less than 100. Today, we’ll get there, it just might take a while.

Location: 100 miles east of Pittsburg, PA

Altitude: 34,000 feet

Airspeed: 300 knots

Temperature: -54 degrees C

We are clawing our way westward in the face of a 150 mph headwind. The same wind that pushed as along between Birmingham and Philly earlier in the day is now making life miserable as head towards Dayton and the end of our trip. In an attempt to reduce the wind we’ve climbed up 4,000 feet up from our planned cruise altitude of 30,000 feet but as of yet it hasn’t made much of a difference.

My FO is a downgraded captain and a good friend giving me the double benefit of trusting him and knowing he will take an active role in the flight. Too often the FO gets in the right seat and conforms to every stereotype in the book. When I was an FO I tried very hard (sometimes too hard) to stay involved and provide advice and feedback as needed. Most of the guys I’ve flown with since upgrading do the same thing but every once in a while you end up with somebody who is happy to be a paperweight. Fortunately that’s not the case this evening and together we work through our fuel, airspeed and time numbers.

The situation is actually pretty good despite the wind in our face. The weather in Dayton is forecasted to be ok at our time of arrival however later it is supposed to deteriorate with snow showers and wind. Our considerate dispatcher gave us an alternate even though we really didn’t need it. The benefit of that is that we’ve got all kinds of extra play fuel. Our new cost indexing software (basically a computer crunches all kinds of numbers including the cost of fuel, the winds, the temperature, the cost of maintenance and spits out an airspeed to fly) is telling us to go fast. Really fast. That’s good for us as it will get us home sooner, but the faster we go the more fuel we burn.

With the power levers almost all the way forward we are managing 80% of the speed of sound (about 500 miles per hour) through the air however, thanks to the wind, we are managing just 330 miles per hour over the ground. It still beats doing 65mph down I70. As the flight computer clicks down to 45 minutes remaining the glow of Pittsburgh through the solid overcast passes off our right side. Somewhere down in the darkness and under the clouds the Ohio River snakes it’s way southward forming the border between Ohio and West Virginia. I take one last look at the constellations of stars overhead as ATC gives us a descent. Away from the light pollution on the ground, and with the cockpit lighting turned down, I am always amazed at how many thousands of stars there are up there.

90 miles out and down to 16,000 feet we are still fighting over 100 mph of wind. The weather in Dayton is still holding, although now Indianapolis is reporting light snow. Dayton is landing to the east which means we will have to fly past the airport and then turn around and come back to land adding several minutes to the flight time. Indy Center hands us off to Dayton Approach who immediately improves our evening by offering us the opposite direction runway because of the light winds. We take it and my FO, who is flying this leg, rebriefs the approach.

Out of 10,000 feet I turn on our landing lights and the no electronic device sign. The lights briefly illuminate nothingness and then we drop into the tops of the clouds and the familiar gray swirling mist appears in the light beams. Several seconds later the aircraft issues a single ding to alert us that we are picking up ice. I throw three switches to direct hot engine air to the leading edge of the wings and the engine cowls to keep ice from forming. By 7,000 feet we are out of the clouds and the light from Dayton come into view. With the runway now in sight we are cleared for a visual approach.

The FO dumps the autopilot and starts the turn towards the field. As we pass through 1,000 feet the final flaps come out and the before landing check list is completed. To the west, approaching from the opposite direction is an American Airlines MD80 whose landing lights are clearly visible. I have a moments concern but then he checks in with tower reporting an 8 mile, giving us plenty of time to land and clear the runway, which we do.

I take the plane back from the FO and taxi to the gate. 10 minutes later all of our passengers are off the plane and we are heading up the jetway ourselves. Outside it is bitterly cold and the first snowflakes are starting to fall as I walk out to my car.

Location: 30 miles Northwest of Beckley, WV

Altitude: 31,000 feet and slowly climbing

Airspeed: 71% of the speed of sound

Temperature: -41 degrees Celsius

A 170 mile an hour west wind is blasting the left side of the airplane as we head north towards Detroit and our last stop of the day before we can head back to Charlotte and the end of the trip. To compensate for the wind the autopilot has pointed the nose of the airplane about 45 degrees to the left of our course, a number that has grown progressively larger over the last 5 minutes as the wind has increased. The good news for us is that we aren’t heading directly into it, and only about 30 miles an hour of that is pushing us backwards. The bad news is a combination of the wind and the high clouds are causing an incredibly rough ride.

15 minutes earlier and well south of the Beckley VOR we had leveled off at our planned final altitude of 30,000 feet but after getting slammed around for 10 minutes we had put our faith in a report of a mostly smooth ride from another airplane at 34,000 feet. We asked for 34,000 as well but the best ATC could do was give us 32,000. Now slowly clawing our way higher with a full load of passengers and both the wing and engine anti ice systems robbing the engines of thrust I was beginning to wonder if we’d make it to 32,000. The book said we could but a rapidly dropping airspeed indicator and a minuscule climb rate was making me wonder.

Finally, as we passed 31,400 feet the airplane decided it was ok with climbing and the airspeed started increasing again. Unfortunately the bumps did as well. After a particularly hard series of jolts I decided to make a quick PA, although verbally reassuring the passengers that we probably weren’t all about to die wasn’t help all that much with people who were suffering from motion sickness. Mission accomplished I went back to splitting my attention between the airspeed tape (which was now holding steady), the altimeter (which was creeping higher), the vertical speed indicator (which was bouncing all over the place in the bumps but holding a positive rate) and the weather radar which is all but useless at higher altitudes as it doesn’t paint frozen precipitation, which at -40 degrees is pretty much all there is.

The ride at 32,000 (once we finally got there) was a little bit better, but the next 30 minutes of flight time as we crossed over West Virginia and Ohio was mostly spent just holding on to something. ATC eventually started us back down again and as we passed between cloud layers the ride settled down. Once we descended below 26,000 the ride smoothed out completely, making me wonder if maybe we should have descended instead of climbed to find a better ride.

Now just 80 miles to the north Detroit was reporting light snow and 2 ½ miles of visibility with a 1000 foot ceiling. That wasn’t good news. The forecast had been for a mostly nice day and we hadn’t gotten an alternate were carrying just our minimum 45 minutes of emergency fuel. The situation got even worse when, as I was discussing options with the FO another weather report came out showing the visibility was now down to 1 ½ miles due to the snow which had picked up. A quick look at a map (I actually carry a Rand McNally road atlas to get a general sense of location) showed Cleveland or Akron were probably our best bets but with only 45 minutes of fuel, and even less if we actually shot the approach and had to go around, those would be long shots. If stuff got really bad I figured Flint or Grand Rapids would work, although we didn’t have approach plates for either place. I took a second to mentally kick myself for not requesting more fuel back in Charlotte but then moved on to dealing with what was rapidly turning into mess.

15 minutes out had us descending through 12,000 feet and breaking into clearer skies. A frozen over Lake Erie was visible below us, and in the snowy hazy to the north we could just make out the lake shore. Cleveland Center passed us off to Detroit approach who turned us towards the airport. Now down at 5000 feet the snow covered ground was clearly visible below us but there was a low layer of clouds to the northwest with snow squalls visible on the leading edge of them. Approach turned us on to the ILS and dropped us down to 3000 feet. As the needles centered up I could just make out the end of the runway 10 miles away, right at the edge of the cloud line.

Approach handed us off to tower who cleared us to land. At about 1500 feet the runway momentarily disappeared behind a cloud but seconds later we broke through and it came back into sight. I mentally thought through a landing on a partially snow covered runway (get it down, don’t worry about softness, get the reversers out and be gentle with the brakes) as the computer called out 500 feet. By 200 feet I could see enough detail to realize the runway was mostly clear although there was snow blowing over the surface. At 100 feet the power started coming out and by 40 feet it was gone. A last second correction for a gust of wind and we were down, on the centerline.

Rolling clear and on to the taxiway several thousand feet later I took a second to let out a long breath. We were down and the bumps and fuel worries were over. However, we were running over an hour late because of an earlier delay which meant we would be quick turning and heading right back into the bumps, the wind, and the ice and snow.

And the funny thing is I knew I was going to love every minute of it.

Yes, I’ve been remiss about updating this. I’ve been busy… doing nothing.

Yesterday I finished up a four day trip which served as an introduction back into winter operations. As was the trip turned out to be pretty easy, but with the weather system moving through it could have been a whole lot worse. All of our flying was confined to the southeast (with one quick trip up to DC and another to Lexington). While we did turns to mostly sunny North and South Carolina other crews fought through a early season Northeastern snow storm. At one point while sitting in the plane on the ramp in sunny Greenville, SC I got a phone call from a friend who was currently grounded in Scanton, PA due to 1/8th of an inch of slush on the runway and windblown snow.

Despite not having to deal with frozen precip (we didn’t even deice the whole trip) we did have pretty gusty winds near the surface and strong winds aloft for the majority of the trip. This manafest itself in bumpy rides down low and increased flight times as we fought against 150mph + headwinds. The worst was a flight from DCA down to Huntsville, AL that normally takes about 1:15 in the air. With the winds as they were it took us 1:54 from the time the wheels came up until my FO managed a nice landing on the 12,000 foot long alternate shuttle landing runway in Alabama.

This was also the first 4 day trip I’d flown in a while, and the shear length of it (I’m used to one and two day trips now) coupled with the early morning show times (6:15am, 4:50am, 6am and 6:15am) made for a long trip. Of course it didn’t help that I got home at 5pm on the last day and had to be back at the airport at 5am the next day to sit hot reserve.

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.