When the heavens open again

Different day, different crew, different place but very much the same theme as my last post. I wrote it a while ago but then lost it in my flight bag for a while.

The sun has set behind us as we race towards Kuching. Singapore Radar says good bye and Kuching Radar says hello. The super advanced weather radar is telling me that our destination is sitting right under a very active raincloud, and the HUGE clouds which are now barely visible in the dwindling sunlight confirm this. I ask for 20 miles off track to avoid the worst of it.

...

10 minutes and 20 000ft later we're getting into the thick of it. Weather avoidance has become futile - the best I can do is avoid the red bits on the radar. Outside the rain is giving us a good planewash and the odd embedded CB I can't avoid massages the passengers, quite forcefully at times. We eventually clear the worst of the weather and accept vectors for final. The weather radar is telling us the approach and landing should be dry-ish. We have flown 30 extra miles by now.

...

Director turns us onto final approach at 12 miles and I intercept the localiser and glide path at the same time, just as we reach the interception altitude. I always get a kick out of flying a constant descent and keeping the engines at idle and even the weather hasn't ruined it too badly today. The runway appears ahead of us and it looks like this will be an uneventful approach.

...

4 miles from touch down and I realise this won't be an uneventful approach. Surface winds are reported calm yet I'm flying straight into 25knots which can only mean that there is a big nasty thunder cell nearby. There suddenly is a whole lot of red right over the runway and some drops are hitting the windscreen. My senses are on high alert for any sign of windshear.

100ft above the ground and the few drops are now a torrential downpour. The wipers are flapping uselessly and the rain repellant (some sort of goo that should make it easier to see out when it's raining) is not working - as usual. All I can see is a blur of light either side where the runway edges should be and a whole lot of black everywhere else. Head down, I fly the ILS to 50 feet then flare on the radio altimeter half expecting the resulting landing to break my back ... and it doesn't. The touch down is beautiful and more or less on centreline - although I can't see any sign of it. Full reverse, full brakes and we're off a few seconds later.

...

After shutting down (20 minutes later because of a gate mixup - but that's another story) I discuss the landing with the captain. He reckons we had about 1000m visibility on touch down and we both agree that it was a rather unpleasant final approach. The rain thunders down for another 15 minutes then suddenly stops, as if someone switched off a tap somewhere. Take-off back to Singapore is uneventful, most of the nasty weather has gone to play elsewhere.

S.