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.