I'm a thirty four year old airline captain at a small regional airline in Minnesota. It's been a long time getting here, and I'm happy to be here. I'm just not a fan of these Minnesota winters, when the temperatures drop far, far below freezing. I fly to different cities in the upper Midwest five days a week. This evening I'm standing at the window to dispatch. The dispatcher is a young handsome guy, with two young & attractive assistants on ether side. He says, "Oh yeah, 5819 to Appleton," like he was reading it, slowly. "Boy, when that earlier flight cancelled, all their passengers got rebooked onto your flight. Computer does that automatically, you see. So you're full, thirty three adults. Green Bay is your alternate, right babe?" The girl on his right giggled, "if you say so!" He hands you your dispatch release form. You glance past all the figures and notes and check the fuel line. 2200 pounds. I looked up at him, eyes squinting in my best Clint Eastwood squint. "twenty two hundred pounds? You have got to be kidding me?"
Hey quickly replies, "Hey, Green Bay is close and works as an alternate, so twenty two hundred will work. Now, I got other flights to dispatch here..." and he swings around to the girl on his left, inspecting closely what she has, which is way more interesting than what I have.
I head out, tell the fueler to make it 2400 lbs. I'm flying with Mike Kaminski tonight. Younger than me (who isn't?), he's good at the job. He's recently married so he's pretty quiet. I guess most newlyweds are, as the reality of what they just did sinks in. Together we get all set to go in our cockpit. All 33 passengers, hands clenching coats tightly, begin boarding in the cold, windy darkness. Finally, doors closed, engines started, We taxi out to the nearest runway. Getting all preparations done like a two-man symphony, in minutes we are accelerating down the runway, then banking sharply right over downtown Minneapolis, turning back east towards Wisconsin as we climb slowly into the icy darkness above.
The bit of tailwind along the way is helpful. We get near Appleton just over an hour later. The weather is reported as at landing minimums, in blowing snow. Oh great, we arrived in the middle of a freakin' blizzard. Now, the only way into Appleton is on the approach to the west runway, which means flying to the airport, then past the airport seven miles, turning around and flying the approach back in. This all takes time and fuel. We hit that electronic glidepath all configured for landing and right on speed. We tracked the electronic glidepath and course needles carefully down on the autopilot, right down to 100'. Nothing. Not even a runway light. We can't go below 70' so I disconnect the autopilot, pitch up while adding full power. "Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!" Three bleeps indicate the autopilot is off. Flaps up, gear up, we quickly climb upward into the snow.
With the landing lights on, the snowflakes look like millions of white streaks, like when Star Wars goes to ludicrous speed. It's been our constant view for almost twenty minutes now. Mike calls Green Bay approach and tells them we need to fly the ILS over there at Green Bay. They give us a vector for the approach to the southwest runway. This means flying a few minutes to Green Bay, then seven miles beyond, turning around again and flying the approach into Green Bay. This is burning up a lot of fuel. We are listening to the weather on the second radio (Sky obscured, one half mile, blowing snow wind blah blah bad) while reconfiguring the navigation radios on both sides, getting the autopilot back on and answering Mike's checklist callouts. Somehow we get it all done in time and again we find ourselves inbound on yet another instrument approach. Throughout the last hour my eyes are looking at the fuel gauges. Technically, to go from Appleton to Green Bay and have legal reserve we need 1200 lbs of fuel. That's 600 pounds per side. Which ain't much on those gauges, but it's exactly what we had when we started over to Green Bay. But wow, those gauges are way down there.
We get turned around northeast of Green Bay, fly the approach to runway 24, right by the book. 200'. Nothing. 100'. Nothing. Crap! Autopilot off, pitch up, full power, begin to bring the flaps and gear up. The control tower says "Flagship 5819, contact Green Bay departure now." Mike switches to departure. Time for an executive decision. Oh do I hate this. "Departure control says, "Flagship 5819, state your, uh, intentions?"
"OK, tell him we want to do the approach again." Mike does and I think the guy could tell from Mike's voice that we were seriously jammed up. We're on reserve fuel now, forty five minutes and counting down, that's a gallon every ten seconds. An honest to God Come to Jesus moment this is, but my mind is too busy to even know it yet. They bring us back around, flying this big rectangular pattern in the sky, back to the approach. On the way I lean over and discussed it with Mike. "OK," I said, "Here's what we'll do. At seventy feet I'll disconnect the autopilot, pitch up just a little and reduce power just a little and we'll fly it right on where the glideslope meets the runway. Then we'll stop using the course needle to keep straight." Mike said, "Yeah, ok, the runway's covered in snow, so it should be soft enough..." And in a minute or two we were turning in on the approach. Again. It's now almost nine pm. Star Wars madness races past in front of us. Deep breaths. "Stay calm ," I tell myself.
Same as before. Everything steady, very stable. I'm holding the control yoke in my left hand, feeling everything it's doing, my nerves sensing what it needs to keep her steady. My hand is sweaty but I keep a firm grip, trying to be one with the airplane. Mike calls out, "Five hundred above," then "Minimums," then "One hundred." A moment later I disconnect the autopilot. "Bleep bleep bleep!" I pull a bit of back pressure with my left arm while my right hand eases the power levers back some. Then......... Woomph! She touches down nice as can be on the soft snow. I put the nose down, carefully work to keep the nose pointed straight, watching the course needle still. Into reverse, we slowly begin to lose speed, then we're down to taxi speed and we both breathe a deep sigh of relief. I then taxi slowly to the left, looking for a runway light. We find one, go to the next, then find a taxi light and turn there. slowly we creep along the taxiway when suddenly the ramp lights appear, the terminal appears, and the blizzard stops. Blizzard gone. Sky clearing. You have got to be kidding me.....
