Summer Solstice

Looking out the right window, the faint but visible northern lights are moving and changing as we progress northwest-bound into Canada. It's 11:00pm local time beneath us, somewhere over the northern reaches of North Dakota, but the sky is still bright. An hour earlier it was complete darkness, under cloudy skies as we departed Minneapolis with a "full boat" of Canadians and American tourists. The Captain gives the PA to the passengers, providing destination temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit... the Canadians will appreciate that, eh. Surprisingly, it's 20 degrees warmer than MSP. I'll take that.


The top picture was taken almost 45 minutes before the bottom one. It's playing tricks on my brain, getting brighter and brighter as the clock ticks later and later. My body thinks it's 1:00am (east coast) but my eyes are playing tricks on me. The bright sky is helping chase away thoughts of sleep... or maybe it's the tall coffee sitting in my cup holder. Or both.

Half an hour till touch down, on the longest day of the year....

Thunderstorm season

Position: Approx 50 miles south of Chicago
Destination: Jacksonville, FL

It's starting to be that time of year again. Ice season is over (mostly), and it's now time to start dodging powerful spring and summer thunderstorms. The Weather Channel warned me of the chance of severe storms from Texas all the way up towards Michigan, as I got ready in the hotel room. Some cold front pushing across the country, lifting the warm, unstable air ahead of it resulting in thunderstorms. Sounds like fun.

Heading to KJAX, the storms are fighting to gain strength and form a huge line as we easily pass above and north of the weak cells. Well that was easy... I wonder what it will be like heading back tomorrow.

A typical flight between KMSP and KJAX... fairly direct.

Today the Weather Channel is talking again about the cold front and the associated storms. But today they are much more organized and severe. A quick glance at the radar shows an amazing line, seemingly without breaks, all the way from Louisiana to New York. The weather section in our dispatch release talks of thunderstorms with tops as high as FL500... 50,000'! No way we can top those...

Dispatch has filed us to the west, then turning north towards MSP. I guess that's probably shorter than heading northeast first, then cutting across. We have a couple thousand more pounds of fuel than the normal route requires... hopefully that will be enough.

Airborne: Our radar can only 'paint' thunderstorms a couple hundred miles away (still pretty impressive!) giving us a limited view of the overall picture. A quick call to ATC confirms our doubts: They suggest flying all the way to Alexandria, LA before hanging a 90 degree right turn and heading north to MSP. Ok... after entering it into the computer, it adds almost 300 miles to our flight. We'll be 45 minutes late, and landing with just a few hundred pounds above our minimum required landing fuel, IF we can even find a way through the line near Louisiana. No thanks..

Another call to ATC, and we get news that the tops are lower up near Nashville, and a few planes are picking their way through the line there. Ok, that sounds better.. change of plans, let's head towards Nashville and hope we can get through the line there.



ATC was right. The tops are much lower, in the 30's.. allowing us to pick our way between and above the weaker areas. As we approach the line, the Captain calls back and has the flight attendants take their seats; this could get bumpy. A few faint flashes of lighting illuminate the clouds as we start to enter the area, but our radar is showing weak returns. We're able to top most of the storms in this area...

After a surprisingly smooth ride through the line, we turn direct to the arrival fix into MSP, and arrive 10 minutes behind schedule. Not too bad. Wonder how many more times we'll have to do that this summer... let the fun begin!

Cat II

Position: KPVD (Providence, RI)
Speed: 0 kts
Temperature: 37*F

The ground is wet with Type I de-ice fluid, sprayed onto our cold-soaked airplane by the ground crew before we arrived. Maybe it had frost on it, maybe they just wasted a bunch of money. Who knows. The sun is starting to rise in the east. That's cool- most of my morning pre-flights are done in the dark. The fuel gauges read 19,800lbs... just 1,000lbs shy of the max quantity of 20,785. Must be a long flight, or bad weather in MSP. Or both.

Two hours later:

We're light enough to climb out of the light chop at FL340, up to FL360 where it's reported smooth. The Captain is happy, as he sets a faster cruise speed. He wants to get in early so he and his family can catch a flight for a vacation. The faster speed eats up more gas, but the higher altitude means lower fuel burn. Works for me...

1,000 miles and nearly 3 hours after takeoff:

Turns out it was a long flight, and bad weather. The visibility in MSP is hovering around 1/4 mile in dense fog. It was forecast to have lifted by this time to 3 miles, but the weather doesn't always listen to the forecast. Tisk Tisk. Our alternate is KDSM (Des Moines), nearly 200 miles away. A quick check of closer airports: Sioux Falls, SD- just as bad. La Crosse, WI- nope. Rochester, MN- even worse. Guess we'll stick with DSM if we don't get in...

We brief and setup for a Catergory II approach, the lowest our aircraft and airline are certified in doing. A couple of Radar Altimeters mounted on the underside of the tail constantly measure the distance between the ground and the aircraft. Using these, we can shoot an approach down to 100' above the ground with as little as 1200' forward visibility before we see anything. Fortunately, the RVR (Runway Visual Range) for 12L is reported as greater than 2600'... and at 200' above the ground we get the Approach Lighting System in sight, followed by the runway as we descend through 150'. The Captain manages a smooth landing on the wet runway, pulling into the gate 15 minutes early.

That was fun.

Winter flying

Position: Turning an 8 mile final, runway 30R @ MSP
Speed: 170kts and slowing
Outside Air Temp: -20 C (or -4 for those who speak Fahrenheit)

The first rays of sunshine are starting to fall on the frozen city of Minneapolis as we descend through the smooth, cold air with 76 sleepy passengers on board. It's 0815am, and I've been on duty for 13.5 hrs. 7 hours on the ground in ORF (Norfolk, VA) yielded about 5 hours in the hotel room, and maybe 4 hours of sleep... but I slept some during the day, and my plans include another nap before repeating the process again tonight.

2:47 minutes and 994 miles earlier:


The clock reads 11:17 UTC, or 06:17 local time in ORF, or about 7 hours since blocking-in the night before. We pushed on-time seven minutes ago, but are now sitting perpendicular to another gate with our engines shut down. Norfolk operations requested that we empty the potable water tanks on descent into ORF a few hours ago, a feature this fancy little airplane has to prevent water from freezing while it remains on the ground in below freezing temps overnight.

Unfortunately the gate the plane was parked at overnight did not have access to fresh water to fill the tanks for the three hour flight ahead. So here we are, engines shut down while the ramp personnel attach a potable water hose to the tail section for a few minutes. Oh well, the clock is ticking, we're getting paid...