Narrative:

It was the fourth leg of a four-leg day. We started with a four-hour flight from {city} to {city} with 1+30 of ground time. When we got to {city} there were thunderstorms all over {city} so we were delayed about 1+30 or more. I was already becoming tired at this point; but was too worried about the weather. When we finally got airborne we had to get vectored around the most serious storms; but even in the rain showers we had moderate turbulence that sometimes made the instruments hard to see. The controllers were busy with all the traffic now flowing in and; as we were coming in on the STAR; we got held up high. As I don't normally come to {city} with my schedule; I did my best with gear and speedbrakes to get down but when they vectored us to the ILS final for 13R we were already quite high. We were able to configure at flaps 40 and get into the slot okay. We got the notice to call scheduling when we were on the ground and were informed that we had to push by a specific time to be legal to go. This gave us about 19 minutes to wait for another aircraft to land; get connecting passengers and baggage; look at the weather; and push. I was kind of dragging at this point as my body was still on east coast time; but I was more concerned with the weather and how we were going to navigate getting out of {city}. I looked at the radar on the company computer and talked to dispatch about our departure SID. We re-filed and boarded up.I released the parking brake just before we were to become illegal. As we taxied out; my first officer helped me get the right taxiway to the runway as we had to make an intersection departure out of 13R. It was then that I realized I wasn't quite as 'with it' as I normally am; but we were able to take off and land at our destination without incident. The next morning I saw on my schedule that we had gone over our max duty time. I also; in 20/20 hindsight; felt that I had most likely been pretty fatigued during the whole affair and would have loved to have called it a day and gone to the hotel. I would like the company to know just how hard it is to self diagnose fatigue. I was asked to perform that evening and that's what I did. Part of that performance was to operate within the limitations placed for me which was to get off the gate by a certain time. Multiple flights; delays; bad weather; and a long duty time all had a compound effect. I was only really able to appreciate it the next morning. If we are that close to being on the edge; the next time I would like the company to help me from myself and simply get me to a hotel where I can crawl into bed and re-charge for the next day instead of making it a game of 'can you get'er done!' I'll always try to get the mission done if that's what you ask me to do.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737-300 Captain detailed a flight schedule that resulted in an on-duty time in excess of that allowed by FAR. He believes the effects of that fatigue on performance were only realized the following day.

Narrative: It was the fourth leg of a four-leg day. We started with a four-hour flight from {city} to {city} with 1+30 of ground time. When we got to {city} there were thunderstorms all over {city} so we were delayed about 1+30 or more. I was already becoming tired at this point; but was too worried about the weather. When we finally got airborne we had to get vectored around the most serious storms; but even in the rain showers we had moderate turbulence that sometimes made the instruments hard to see. The Controllers were busy with all the traffic now flowing in and; as we were coming in on the STAR; we got held up high. As I don't normally come to {city} with my schedule; I did my best with gear and speedbrakes to get down but when they vectored us to the ILS final for 13R we were already quite high. We were able to configure at flaps 40 and get into the slot okay. We got the notice to call Scheduling when we were on the ground and were informed that we had to push by a specific time to be legal to go. This gave us about 19 minutes to wait for another aircraft to land; get connecting passengers and baggage; look at the weather; and push. I was kind of dragging at this point as my body was still on East Coast time; but I was more concerned with the weather and how we were going to navigate getting out of {city}. I looked at the radar on the company computer and talked to Dispatch about our departure SID. We re-filed and boarded up.I released the parking brake just before we were to become illegal. As we taxied out; my First Officer helped me get the right taxiway to the runway as we had to make an intersection departure out of 13R. It was then that I realized I wasn't quite as 'with it' as I normally am; but we were able to take off and land at our destination without incident. The next morning I saw on my schedule that we had gone over our max duty time. I also; in 20/20 hindsight; felt that I had most likely been pretty fatigued during the whole affair and would have loved to have called it a day and gone to the hotel. I would like the company to know just how hard it is to self diagnose fatigue. I was asked to perform that evening and that's what I did. Part of that performance was to operate within the limitations placed for me which was to get off the gate by a certain time. Multiple flights; delays; bad weather; and a long duty time all had a compound effect. I was only really able to appreciate it the next morning. If we are that close to being on the edge; the next time I would like the company to help me from myself and simply get me to a hotel where I can crawl into bed and re-charge for the next day instead of making it a game of 'can you get'er done!' I'll always try to get the mission done if that's what you ask me to do.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.