Another day of this crap.

Sunday started off the same as Saturday...decent weather in AUG, decent weather in RKD, slightly less decent weather in BOS...not bad, just not as nice as up north. The flight down to BOS is quite pleasant. We're actually in the cloud tops almost the whole way...it's really quite the sight. (See the videos here: 1, 2). CA Jared and I have a two hour airport appreciation period once we get to BOS, and Jared has made sure I know not to volunteer us for ANY extra legs. I don't think there's much chance of that after yesterday.

Our two hours of airport appreciation time went as planned, so when 7:20pm rolls around, we're ready to push with 14 people on board. It's raining hard again as we make the slow taxi out to runway 9 for departure. A 737 departs from runway 9 before us, followed by a 757 on the crossing runway. As the 75- rolls through the intersection I spool the engines up onto the governors. They both stabilize at 1700 RPMs as BOS tower says "Company 4973, winds 1-7-0 at 17 gusts 34; caution wake turbulence, previous departure was a 757 from the crossing runway, runway niner, cleared for takeoff." I push the power levers up to takeoff power and release the brakes.

Between the gusty crosswind and the wake from two jets much larger than us, it takes a lot of work on the rudders to keep the plane somewhere near some semblance of the center line. It takes almost full right aileron to keep weight on the right wheel. Things are going OK until I roll through the 9/15R intersection (the runway that the 757 took off of just seconds before). Even with full aileron in, the airplane jumps a few feet to the left before I have a chance to react. I catch up with it about as the right main hits the in-runway center line light. It takes a few seconds of swerving before I get the plane settled back in the middle of the runway. I can feel the gusts hit as CA Jared calls "V1, rotate."

The mains jump off the concrete as we're hit with a gust. I release the cross wind control inputs and the nose swings quickly to the right. I turn the yaw damper on as Jared runs the climb checklist. We're in the soup before the gear hits the upstops, so my focus goes straight to the instruments. I hold ten degrees nose up as I push the power levers up to Max Continuous Power (MCP). Jared is giving me airspeed deviation call outs through the climb; we've been averaging +-15kts in the climb through 3,000 feet. For the most part, though, 10 degrees nose up (or a close approximation, through the bumps) is giving me a pretty reliable climb at 160kts and about 2,500fpm. At 3,000 feet, things change.

I'm in a 20 degree left bank, having just been given a turn on course direct Pease VOR, when mother nature decides to make sure we know who's actually in charge. The turbulence has been pretty much constant since, well, since we left the gate, but now it gets bad. As we cross 3,000 feet, I notice the airspeed is starting to deteriorate, so I lower the nose slightly. It recovers to 160kts, but now our climb performance is suffering. I reach over to push up the power levers, but the torques are topped out at MCP.

At 1,500 fpm, I see Jared has taken notice. At 1,000 feet per minute I'm starting to struggle to hold 140 kts, let alone my goal of 160kts. I turn to Jared and say "Uhhh, we've kind of stopped climbing." I reach over for the power levers again, but the torques are still at MCP; I run them up to the maximum torque limit, we have a five minute limitation at this power setting. Jared starts to say something, but doesn't have time before we are absolutely rocked. The bottom falls out of the airplane, and the jolt of turbulence is strong enough to force us up into the shoulder harnesses. If this was a Seminole, I would have just hit my head pretty hard. Fortunately it's not a Seminole, so all we have to worry about is the fact that we're only climbing at 1200 feet per minute.

It takes a few seconds, but as we pass 5,000 feet, the speed jumps from 150kts to almost 180. I reduce the power to MCP again, and the VSI finally turns back up to 3,000 fpm. In bumps like this, it takes me an absurdly long time to get the power set evenly on both sides. I level off at 9,000, our planned cruise altitude for this flight, but we're still getting slammed around the sky. The best I can do is +-10 degrees of heading, 75-100 foot deviations in altitude (normally we stay within about 20 feet), and 5 to 10 degree variations in pitch and roll. Pretty much, I'm just trying to keep the plane pointed in the right general direction, and that's all I can hope for. Jared asks Boston Approach for "an immediate climb to 14,000 for moderate turbulence," but we're still in the middle of the departure corridor, so they tell us "unable" for another ten miles.

Fortunately it's only a couple more minutes of this pounding before we get a climb and a frequency change to Boston (Manchester) Approach. Before he changes frequency, though, Jared tells BOS Departure one last thing: "Just so you know, approach, between 3 and 7,000 we were experiencing +-35kts, 100 foot variation, and moderate turbulence with occasional pockets of severe."

Come to find out later, this PiRep was enough to close down Boston. The Bar Harbor crew was, apparently, inside the marker on approach when we made this report. They, and everyone behind them, got pulled off the approach and put into a hold, while all departures were ground stopped for about a half an hour while the heavy weather passed the field. Both CA Jared and I were a little proud to have shut down a major airport at the height of their evening rush...and we were able to do it without wrecking the plane (which is how most people get to close down airports).

The approach into Rockland was just as rough, if not slightly worse than yesterday's ride. Bad enough, in fact, that we got our first pukers in the back of the plane. This is the first time I've ever had someone lose their lunch (and dinner, I think) in a plane I'm flying. Big day of firsts for me.

Well, the weather has finally started to improve this week, so hopefully I should have more photos (and fewer sick passengers) soon. Until then, good night, and good luck.