Click on the pics to make them bigger

I saw one other pretty cool thing in Goose Bay yesterday - A V-22 Osprey. I didn't know they were even allowed to fly these beasts any more, considering they have killed a whole lot of US Marines during testing. This is the machine with the huge props that tilt upward for takeoff, then rotate to tilt forward for cruise.

Unfortunately the pics are taken from far away - I wasn't airside when I noticed it taking off. It taxiied out, tilted the props forward (which kicked up a LOT of spray) then did a ground run of maybe 100 feet and took off into the clouds.

After it took off, our pax finally arrived in the chopper, so we loaded up and headed home. The weather departing Goose was crap - big Tstorms all around and a nice low overcast so we were in imc immediately after takeoff and got the enjoy the scary bumps for the 20 minutes it took to get to 36,000'. The big radar site at Cornerbrook was out, so we really had to put a lot of faith into our onboard radar and satellite strike finder. I do trust them a lot, and they didn't let me down this time either.

I had to drop one guy off in Parry Sound, which was fun 'cause it's a 4,000' runway - generally pretty short for a jet. However my trusty 550 is a great short-field machine and I hade it stopped in less than 2,000' without even trying particularly hard. After we dropped off buddy, we headed back home to Toronto, dodging even more convective weather on the way in. To end the day on a nice note, we got a good taste of wake turbulence from the A340 on approach ahead of us, and ended up doing a 360 so increase the spacing between us and it. Air Canada can kiss my Citation butt, they are bad neighbors :) After all that, and a particularly fine landing on my part, our pax had the audacity to be grumpy at the end of the long day, mostly due to the helicopter delay I'm sure. They also left a huge mess in the airplane, including 2 full large trays of fruit and veggies they left dumped on the floor. "They fell during the flight". Oh, and by the way, one of our pax was the premier of one of our provinces. I'm not looking forward to the phone call to the guy who cleans our airplanes today to tell him to spend the day removing ranch dressing from our floor carpet. Anyhoo, here are the pics of the Osprey, hopefully you can see a pixel or two of actual airplane.