Our day started with our typical 5:20am show time in Ithaca. I’m the type of person who has to have things planned ahead of time. I don’t like being caught off guard by anything…I had been checking the weather for the day the night prior. It was planned to be pretty crappy with a snow storm blowing through the northeast about midday.

When I got to the airport I met the captain I’m flying with and we exchanged hellos, got some breakfast and coffee, talked about the loads and mozied out to the airplane. Since Ithaca is a college town, and it was the end of finals week- we knew we would be heavy all day out of Ithaca. And sure enough- 30 passengers outbound. Our flight attendant was pretty new and she wasn’t at the airport yet because she was coming in from Providence the night before and needed a couple extra mins to meet her rest period requirement.

The captain and I get out to the airplane, I do my preflight in the 15 degree weather and hop into my seat for the day. We do the runup and we see our young and delightful flight attendant walking towards the fully power-up airplane- the captain says “bring down the left side and open it up for her”. I shut down the left engine and get up out of my seat, open the door and bring down the airstairs for her. We introduce ourselves to her, she prepares the cabin and we’re ready to board. 29 people come out of the door and we’re boarded up headed to New York’s LaGuardia airport. Uneventful flight, the captain lands in NY we deplane and load up going back to Ithaca. Our release is calling for Weather in Ithaca at our arrival to be “Wind 140@7 +SN BLSN 2SM VV003″. For those of you reading that are not familiar with this encryption. It’s Winds from the Southeast at 7 knots, HEAVY SNOW, BLOWING SNOW, 2 Miles of VISIBILITY, with a Vertical Visibility of 300 feet.

While in cruise- it’s smooth and we’re in the clouds the entire time. On the decsent into Ithaca a new weather report comes out calling it Heavy Snow with 3/4 mile visibility and the runway has not been plowed. Luckily it’s my leg and we need at LEAST 3/4 mile visibility to shoot the ILS to runway 32 in Ithaca. I brief the approach making sure we’re both in agreement with EXACTLY what is going to happen if we should have to go missed…with that we start down the glideslope. The calls from the captain seem to be coming fast…Localizer ALIVE….Glideslope ALIVE…I call Flaps 15, Gear Down, Flaps 20 Before Landing Checklist…Then he comes back with…1000 Above on Profile….500 Above on Profile….100 Above….Alight man we’re real close here….APPROACH LIGHTS IN SIGHT!! I respond- Continue…and he calls runway in sight- I land the airplane and throw it into reverse. We taxi in.

Pretty intense for about 5 minute there. While we were on our way down the approach we overheard Elmira Approach tell another aircraft that the weather in Elmira, NY was now 1/16 mile Freezing Fog Heavy Blowing Snow. Why is this important you ask? Because Elmira is west of Ithaca and whatever Elmira is getting- is inevitably on its way to Ithaca. So now we’re pushing time here trying to get out because we need either 1 mile of Visibilty to take off, or 1/4 mile with adequate visual references. (runway centerline/lights, etc) We can see the runway edge lights, so we’re good with at least 1/4. We deplane and load back up trying to beat the weather.

We’ve now got 32 going back to New York’s LaGuardia. Well this can be a problem. In Ithaca when you take off runway 14 there is what we call a “restricted runway climb limit”. For today with the temperature of what it is we’re at a RCL of 28,394 lbs. Which means to use runway 14 we CANNOT weigh more than 28,394 lbs. When we load up the bags and passengers I begin the math. If we’re over that RCL we need to remove passengers and bags. Why is this bad? Because all of the Philadelphia flights out of Ithaca have been cancelled. Now there are tons of college kids stranded in Ithaca during a terrible winter storm. I’m sitting there dreading my drive back home. I finish the math with a huge sigh of relief. Our takeoff weight is 28,888. Yep we cleared it by 6 pounds. One more bag and someone and their bag would be off the airplane.

We close the door and launch towards NYC. Lucky us! The weather down there has deteriorated as well and we get thrown into a hold. With a few speed restrictions we land in New York 6 minutes behind schedule. We taxi in, deplane get our paperwork and my captain’s phone begins ringing. It’s dispatch- the weather in Ithaca is now below minimums and we cannot be released. For some reason they are not willing to dispatch us under exemption 3585 which would allow us to go take a look at Ithaca with the hopes of getting in. If we dont we would have 2 more alternate airports which to try. Well they’re the boss and they told us to wait 30 minutes. We wait…and wait….and wait…well now an 1159 departure turns into a 345pm…I end up calling Ithaca ATIS telephone number just to see whats going on up there. Well the phone number directed me to the Ithaca Air Traffic Control tower where the tower manager Doug answered. We began talking- he told me the current weather and then said the airport was closed. Well we waited another hour- the Ithaca airport opened and then LaGuardia closed. There is now 3 inches of nasty, juice SLUSH on the ramp and everything has HALTED. Dispatch cancelled the flight.

Now the fun started. We call crew scheduling to see what they want us to do. They tell us that there are 20 other crewmembers stuck there too. Well we ended up meeting other 20 members and started shooting the shit while scheduling worked out the situation. 2 hours later they call us back and tell us that we’re going to take a coach bus to Newark and thats where our hotel is. Okay, we all go catch the bus and we’re off for the hour and half ride to Newark, NJ. We get to the hotel and get our rooms. I know that I’m for certain ready to go to bed. I get a text from the Captain saying that we have an 11am show time and to be downstairs at 10 for the bus back to LGA.

So now it’s Friday…we get on the bus back to LGA - go through security- have a hell of time finding our airplane because Colgan had 8 airplane spend the night in LGA. We find the airplane- find out it’s oversold because of everyone trying to get back to Ithaca from last nights flights and this mornings flights being cancelled. Our airstairs are broken, so we have to use roller stairs. We depart and head back to Ithaca…I land in Ithaca and we pull up to the jetway and deplane. I finish and we’re good to go.

We say hello to the outbound crew, checkout and head off to our cars. 8 inches of snow sit atop our cars, so we have some more fun brushing that off. We say goodbye and drive back home…finally.

My thursday I was only supposed to get 5:59 of Pay Credit…well with the overnight and cancellations and sitting in the airport we ended up getting

14 hours of pay credit + Per diem.

I was only supposed to get $126…however I actually got $344. Not bad- if you ask me.

That afternoon- I met up with a couple of friends to have dinner and go see a movie. Well to make things worse, we were sitting stopped at a red light and we get rear ended by a 1982 Buick LeSabre. And to add insult to injury- the 23 year old female who hit us has no car insurance. So my friend is screwed and the female driver had her car towed, received 3 tickets and was arrested.

Needless to say- I’m ready for a couple of days off. Thanks for reading everyone.

 Nevertheless- I was awake at 3:50 and up and in the shower by 55 minutes past the hour. My drive to the airport is a usual 30 minutes to trek 34 miles. Today, there is about 3 inches of snow on the back roads that I’m travelling on and I’m planning on getting in behind schedule, albeit still early. I get into the US Airways ops room at about 5:18 for a 5:20 show, the first crewmember to arrive. Next is our flight attendant Wendy and the captain. We head out to the airplane to do our morning runup. The airplane, like the roads is covered with thick, wet, heavy snow. I do my exterior preflight and jump up into the cockpit for the day.

 Lucky me! There are no weight and balance forms or TOLD cards in the airplane. Now when we finish the runup, I’ve got go back into ops and get those- a measley 200 yard walk, or more. Dreading that it’s only 23 degrees outside- I put my jacket back on and walk back into the building and get my paperwork. I get back to the airplane and we start boarding. As a new FO, budgeting my time is imperative or else I will start slowing down the operation. I have to get the ATIS, Clearance, Fuel info, runway and climb limits, and then the paperwork gets going fast and things start piling up in the cockpit. Within minutes of passengers getting in their seats, the flight attendant with throw her load form into cockpit which has her passenger count and their zone (A, B, C or D). I need everything that is on that sheet because it will go on our Load Manifest (W&B form). Usually within seconds of that, the OF-11 (pronounced ‘oh-eff-eleven’) comes into the cockpit with what bags were loaded into our cargo compartment and their respective section. In the Saab it is either C1 or C2 (US Airways calls is R1 and R2). Once I get the information, I begin my math. Once I get ramp weight, TO weight and Landing weights I tell the captain “GO FOR 28.5″. All that means is I’m ready for index limits for a TO weight of 28,500. He’ll spin the wheel and spit them out and I’ll copy them down onto the form. I’ll give it one more glance to make sure I filled out everything and I hand it over on my clipboard to the captain. I immediately begin getting Vspeeds for TO and TO power. In the Saab we do reduced power takeoffs based on reduced power incentive given to us by our engine owners, General Electric. I get the speeds and settings, write them down and boom. The doors are closed and I’m calling for push.

Today, since we’re covered in snow we’ve got to go to the deice pad. We’re taking type 1 today. With type 1 we have 6 minutes from the last application to get off the ground. In Ithaca, NY there is 1 deice pad. There are 4 airplanes that spend the night there. (2 Air Wisconsin CRJs, 1 Colgan Saab and 1 Mesaba Saab). The deice pad is in hot demand on winter mornings. The problem is, the CRJ and Northwest Saab are all earlier departures than our 6:20am to New York’s La Guardia. The CRJ takes 40 minutes to deice. The Northwest Saab takes 1 hour. You see, the snow was SO thick and heavy that it was taking 25 minutes to deice 1 wing. It took us SO long to deice that a ground stop came up for us as we were taxiing out, luckily the people in the Ithaca tower worked their magic and we avoided further delay.

 So it’s my leg and we’re on our way to LGA. As we get closed the Captain picks up the weather and talks to Ops on the ground. He gets our gate and request other special things like a LAV service and catering. He passed on the weather to me- seems as though there is clear skies and gusty winds in NYC at 320@21G32. In LaGuardia they’re doing the Expressway Visual to runway 31, an amazing approach as it gives the people in back a beautiful view of downtown Manhattan. Because I like this approach so much, I decide to turn off the autopilot coming down the Hudson. I land the airplane with two small thuds and the captain tells me excellent job. He takes the airplane and I’ve got the radios now.

 My today is…

ITH-LGA 0620 0745

LGA-ITH 0810 0945

ITH-LGA 1020 1129

LGA-ITH 1159 1324

 We reboard and head back to Ithaca for a rather uneventful flight. When we get back ITH we find out the winds in LGA are worse and they’ve started to use the same runway for takeoffs and landings. This is inevitably means a ground stop. Sure as shit, we’ve got a wheels up time of 1123, which is not too long because we’re already behind schedule from this morning’s deice fiasco.

 We go inside, shoot some shit and board up and head back out. Luckily, the ice that was on our wings from our decent into Ithaca has melted and we dont need a deice. We board up and head back to the big apple. It was a nice flight, very bumpy. In LGA they had switched to the Localizer to runway 31, the tower reports +/- 10 kt shear on final from 2000 feet all the way to the ground. Luckily it’s my leg again. I flew it well and touched down extremely smooth, on speed and in the touchdown zone and I got another seal of approval from my captain telling me “You’re the best I’ve seen in a long time”. Which put a smile on my face, no less.

Everyone is on board and we’re headed back to Ithaca. Short wait in line for takeoff…about 10 airplane which is pretty short for LGA midday. Back in Ithaca- we’ve got the to be the bad guy and tell the afternoon crew that there will be a 2 hour groundstop for LGA. The bad part of that is, they had a show time of 1250, and we didn’t even land until 1350.

The MEL’s that we had on our airplane today were-

Nose wheel steering, rudder limiter (which restricted us to 180 knots) and finally the flight attendant jumpseat.

 So far I really love the job. It’s everything I thought it would be. There is very little interaction with the passengers which is the only thing that surprises me. The Saab is a wonderful airplane and I look forward to the day that I can be typed on it.

 I’m flying tomorrow, so I’ll post my experiences from that. Have a great weekend everyone.