Into the abyss

We crossed Providence at 11,000 feet and braced as we entered the clouds.
"Here we go," I muttered, exhausted and apprehensive of the next few minutes. My Captain, the non-flying pilot on this leg to Boston, remained silent.
All around us, in the murky night sky, moderate to severe turbulence awaited, mixed in with rain and ice.
Our day had started a little over 14 hours earlier. On the airport van, the Captain and I discussed the weather. All our destinations that day were looking bleak.
Of course, this was also the last day of our four-day sequence and getting home for Christmas was not a certainty.
The first leg went well. We encountered a little weather but nothing too significant. I preflighted and set up for our next leg to LaGuardia and surveyed the weather along the East Coast. The first wave of the bad stuff was now developing, spelling certain delays and more than likely cancellations.
As we neared New York, the Captain clicked the autopilot off and fought angry turbulence valiantly.
"You're cleared to land runway 22, wind 180 at 26 gusting 30. Previous aircraft reported a gain of airspeed of 20 knots at 800 feet," the controller advised us.
Sure enough, the aircraft jolted violently and rolled at that altitude.
Defiant and determined, The Boss landed beautifully.
As usual, we sat for a few hours at LaGuardia. The terminal was packed with holiday travelers, many of them stranded for now. Every seat in the house was taken and weary passengers filled every inch of available real estate. Against the backdrop of Christmas songs, exasperated children cried and moaned, the desperate argued hopelessly with overwhelmed gate agents while seasoned travelers sat in silence, resigned to the mess that are New York airports.
In fitting style, we learned our flight to Washington was canceled the same way our passengers did: through the gate agent's PA. Not completely surprised, the Captain and I began studying our options for the rest of the day, hoping to talk ourselves into flying an earlier flight home, perhaps even early enough for us to beat the thick of the weather.
But it was all to no avail and we were destined to sit.
Fast-forward five long, excruciating hours. We are 10 minutes from departure. The cockpit is all set up for our flight to Boston, our fuel looks good, passengers and bags are on board. All we are missing are our weight and balance numbers. Once they come in we'll punch our passenger load and cargo into the FMS, make sure the passenger distribution matches what our flight attendant has relayed to us. We'll then hand our paperwork to the gate agent, shut the door and get on our way home.
But it's almost Christmas and it's been a long four-day trip filled with weather encounters and nothing, absolutely nothing, can be easy this close from being home.
"Bad news," the frazzled gate agent tells me. "You're switching airplanes."
No way. Not with everything ready to go and now only a few minutes to an on-time departure. Not on our last leg of the trip. Not when this delay could cause us to time out and be stuck in LaGuardia, away from home for a fifth day. Not as weather in Boston is building, making our chances of making it in slimmer and slimmer with every wasted minute.
We fought it and won. Paperwork's gone, door's closed. Off we go.
It's my leg and I'm tired. Long day, long trip and only one day of rest since my previous trip. But I can do it. With the winds tonight it'll be a half-an-hour flight.
I lift off easily and made the turn to south on the Maspeth Climb. A few miles from the airport I roll the airplane the the left, a long sweeping turn that will point us Northwest, towards home. The heavy winds have cleared the air and the bright orange lights below us extend to infinity. We cut briskly through broken cumuli on our way to FL230. The grey clouds contrast sharply with the lights below and are bathed from above in the moon's cold silver light, a truly beautiful sight.
Ahead of me, build-ups rise menacingly in the dark sky. Inside these towering clouds, awaits mayhem, so I divert around them to avoid the bumps and keep this ride as smooth as possible. Nonetheless, we are pulled and shoved by the angry sky.
At 23,000 feet, I click the autopilot on to set up my instruments for our approach into Boston. With strong tailwinds, we are only in cruise for a few minutes before beginning our descent.
"Here we go."
As we enter the clouds over Providence, the aircraft becomes a bucking bronco. The autopilot is struggling as am I, pulling and pushing the throttles, trying desperately to maintain our assigned airspeed. The PLI -- an stall indicator of sorts -- pops up on my primary flight display then disappears. We call it the rake of death, because of its shape and the typically ominous conditions that cause it to rear its ugly head.
I'm tired. Very tired and this flight is draining every ounce of my mental energy.
As we begin the approach turbulence intensifies. I turn the autopilot off and intercept the localizer. Because of the bumps, the trend vector on my airspeed indicator is all over the place, up and down, up and down. But with all those throttle movements I'm still within a handful of knots of my assigned speed.
It's getting harder and harder though. My exhausted mind is about ready to check out. My eyelids feel heavy and the instruments seem to want to meld together in a confused maelstrom of lights.
"Flaps 9," I call.
Less than 10 miles to go. But every foot of this approach seems interminable.
"Glideslope's alive," says the Captain.
"Gear down, flaps 22, I'll configure later than usual."
The Boss nods, approvingly.
Five miles to go.
We're still stuck in this dark and unwelcoming abyss. I'm having to work harder and harder to focus, to keep it all together, to prepare for the heavy crosswinds on the surface. My eyes are racing between instruments, my hands fighting the bumps.
At 700 hundred feet, we break out of the clouds and the brightly lit runway appears before us.
"Visual," we both call out at the same time.
The wind continues to thrash the airplane around.
"Wind's 190 at 33, you're cleared to land."
Almost there, but not quite done yet. I have to keep fighting the bumps with significant thrust changes all the way to a few feet over the runway.
Throttles to idle, slip the aircraft to track the centerline. The mains are down. Immediately, I pull the throttles into reverse and the nose comes down. We've made it.
As the captain taxies us back to the gate I exhale. We're home.
Through the beam of the taxi light I notice that it's raining sideways.

Where's the Captain?

A brand new First Officer generally has few things to worry about. Of course, in the beginning, there is always some stress involved in flying with an unknown captain, worries of being stuck with one that has little patience for the inevitable mistakes of the unseasoned and inexperienced FO. There is also the workload, which seems like a formidable mountain early on but soon erodes to a completely conquerable hill.
The junior FO, in his snug right seat, generally doesn't have to fret about maintenance issues, fuel, boarding and delays. While flying is a crew effort and decisions are discussed, the final call regarding those items is ultimately left to the captain. After all, he has to earn his pay.
When things don't go as planned, however, the lonely FO can be momentarily thrust from the comfortable position of number two man into a decision-making role, putting a whole new spin on the job.
I deadheaded to an outstation last night, where the flight attendant and I would meet up with our captain for a leg to JFK. For a silly reason better left untold, the captain informed me he would not be flying with us and promptly boarded a flight home.
Perplexed, I asked the gate agent what the plan was. A new captain was on his way, she said, but he'd be arriving after departure time. After further discussion, we decided to board the aircraft "on timish" so that we would be ready to go as soon as The Boss slid into the left seat.
Easy peasy, I thought. Setting the cockpit up for the now familiar flight would take only minutes and I looked forward to impressing the captain by having everything ready to go.
With my flows complete and the flight plan loaded into the FMS, I gave the flight attendant the green light to board our passengers. I rehearsed a reassuring PA and delivered the good news to our passengers, many with connections in New York, that the crew would soon be whole and we would be on our way shortly for a close to on-time arrival.
With time on my hands, I perused the release and noticed our fuel didn't match the numbers in the paperwork. While this can be acceptable under certain circumstances, our fuel load at the gate was awfully close to minimum takeoff fuel. Getting to the runway would take at most one or two minutes, but since we were going to New York on a less than perfect weather day an unexpected release time could mean more time on the ground at our departure station, hence more fuel being burned. Unwilling to run this by the captain and cause further delay, I called operations to request more fuel.
Minutes later, the gauges finally matched the numbers on our release and I breathed a sight of relief. I decided to double-check that everything was set up correctly since I had a few more minutes before the captain's arrival. And that is when I noticed a blue advisory message on our EICAS: AHRS 1 BASIC MODE.
What on earth did that mean?
Advisories are the lowest rung of the annunciation system in our airplane but I refused to shrug it off and pulled out my flight manual. "If on the ground, do NOT take off," the book said. Some of these problems can typically be solved by pulling a breaker. I struggled with the decision and opted not to attempt solving the problem myself. Again, unwilling to cause further delay I called maintenance.
When the mechanic told me we'd have to shut everything off, a glimpse of the disapproving captain berating me for not simply resetting a breaker passed through my mind. Sure enough, the fix caused us to be stuck at the gate for a few more minutes and as I powered everything down I could hear sighs throughout the cabin. My final PA explaining the problem to our now understandably impatient passengers did little to quiet their collective grunt of dissatisfaction.
When the captain finally arrived, I explained the situation and he seemed to approve of my decisions.
We made it to the gate in New York only 9 minutes behind schedule.
The following day brought snow and yet another crew problem. Our captain for the flight to Washington was on his way. Again, the decision was made to set everything up and board to get off the ground as close to on-time as possible. The hitch was that both of our de-icing trucks were out of commission and at 9 a.m., as I collected the release, the gate agent told me the 7 a.m. flight was still at the gate, waiting to be de-iced.
I joined other pilots in asking our operations to borrow a truck from our parent company and secured a place for us in a long line of planes to be sprayed.
Three hours later, with a boat full of angry passengers, we finally departed the ramp.
The decisions were very small in nature and would have been easier to make in conjunction with a captain. Being alone and sort of in charge suddenly made them appear much bigger in scope, especially when I could almost feel the unhappy breath of our passengers on my neck.
I guess captains don't have it quite so easy after all.