It’s a two leg night tonight.
The first leg is KSEA -> KGEG. We are screamin’ into Spokane at FLT230 and radar has two other aircraft below us. They are slower than us though and we overtake them quickly. For awhile I can look down and out the windows of the CRJ and see them several thousand feet below as we slide over them. The landing at Spokane is a beautiful floater with the setting sun off and behind our left wing. I don’t think I even had to touch the thrust reversers. All brake and glide and all pretty.
As we taxi up to the gate for shutdown Flightdesk dings to indicate a message is coming in. It’s our old friend DAL704. He had landed at KGEG some time ago and was wasting time sitting in the cockpit watching the aircraft come in. It also appears he is the proud owner of a high powered zoom lens and a digital camera because he’s IM-ing us to say he snapped a photo of us coming in for our landing. He’s going to be sending it over to my cell phone.
That’s HOT! I’ve never had someone take a picture of my ship in flight and I’m very anxious to see what we see. The picture comes in and it’s, … why… it’s… GORGEOUS! Suddenly I’m in love with my aircraft all over again. Like the day I first saw her, first ran my fingertips over the smooth paint of her belly. It’s a beautiful photo of that gorgeous floating landing we just pulled off with the orange setting sun lighting the scene just perfectly. Gads. I just love this photo. It’s going straight onto my computer desktop background just as soon as I can get to it so I can stare at it even more.
While we are busily lost in self admiration 704 has headed back up one more time to shoot a little landing pattern practice around KGEG. I’m finding that I have to tear myself away from the photo and get back to focusing on the next task at hand. We’ll be out of here soon bound for Rapid City and I have to reconfigure the nav bots and get ready to go flying again.
(Suddenly a loud “BWEEEEEEEEP…. BWWEEEEEEEEP” breaks my reminiscing. WOW,.. Nothing like an overspeed warning to get your attention! Looks like we picked up a bit of tailwind and the gust gave us an extra 20 knots forward. Huh? What’s that? Am I using a laptop on the flight deck? Oh, yea... I’m typing this enroute somewhere over North Carolina. I know, I know… laptops on the flightdeck = bad. I’ll be in trouble for sure if Mother reads this. More on this later.)
… anyways…
Anyways, we are soon spinning up for the next leg outbound for Rapid City with 7,000lbs of fuel onboard. I’m looking forward to this nice long relaxing flight and basking in some well deserved self admiration. There should be a full moon out tonight as well and I can’t wait to see it. Cruise altitude for this leg is 31,000 feet and the view should be spectacular. As much as I should be using Jetways to get there, I’m requesting to use Victor airways on the flightplan tonight instead. Just to have something different to do. Mother approves the route as follows and we are off:
GEG V2 ROPES HILLIE MLP V2 HLN V247 BIL V86 RAP
We spin up the engines, pushback and start the taxi to the runway just as DAL704 is returning from shooting his landing practice. He’s taxiing up towards us at a 90 degree angle on a crossing taxiroute when I hear ground call out.
“DAL704 give way to the United regional jet on taxiway… report traffic in sight.”
DAL704 replies briskly. “Roger we’ll hold for the company”. He stops his ship right directly off to our 10 o’clock and we slide past with him off our left wing. As we pass DAL704 flashes his landing lights. Twice. Ahh, thank you sir. I’m honored. We snap our lights twice in return as we roll on by.
Departure is smooth, it’s dark again and we are at cruise. The sky is severe clear tonight but still the moon hasn’t shown up. Moonrise must be later than I had thought so we are back into Vampire Mode again. The route has a few turns early on, but when we finally settle onto Victor 86 it’s just one big long straight line to Rapid City. The DME is reading 126 to RAP and when the distance is a 3 figure number it doesn’t change as much as when a decimal is involved. In fact, the only thing that indicates we are still moving is the fuel gauge slowly reminding me the tanks are filling with air. Finally the DME kicks over to 99.8 to RAP and there is some small comfort in seeing the digits actually move a bit more. Still a ways to fly though... and I find myself constantly going back to the photo of our landing at KGEG on my cell phone in admiration.
25 or so minutes later we are on approach for Rapid City. The setup for final is nice and smooth when at about 1500 feet …. Fog! Fog Fog Fog! Tons of it! Holy crap the runway has vanished! Quickly switch from visual mode to ILS mode and concentrate on the numbers... only 30 seconds to fly… where is the damn runway?!
The inner marker warning sounds at 250 feet and I’m a split second away from going around when the outer edge of the runway becomes barely visible. We are still in alignment and the runway threshold is clear enough for us to get down. A split second decision and I decide to go for it. 5 seconds later and WHAM we are down, thrust reversers slam on, brakes grab and the ship vibrates like it’s going to come apart. And then it’s over. We are safe.
OK wow. There was some of that “moments of stark terror” part right there. Up to the gate, shutdown and start breathing again. Fightdesk chirps as if on cue. It’s 704 again.
DAL704: Did you like the photo?
…collect my thoughts for a second in between breathing again and shutting down the avionics.
UAL35: Um.. let me think… YES! Thank you!
DAL704: Be glad I didn’t send you the one of the nosedive for the ground you did before that.
DAMN! I was hoping I could get away with that. It’s true enough though. We had a lot of altitude to burn off during the approach to KGEG, and at his angle on the ground it must have looked rediculous.
UAL35: yeah you can just delete those if you want.
DAL704: lol
Sooo busted.
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