*NOTE* in one of the vids I posted yesterday, I show some nasty weather moving through Nashville. I checked the news last night and saw that more than 10 people died as a result of that storm system. That's awful, and it further underscores the power that some of these storm systems have, especially ones in the midwest.

Now lets document the trip back home. This one went faster - we did about 4.5 hours in the air as opposed to 7 hours getting to Scottsdale, which is directly a result of the 180 mph winds blowing from west to east during these past few days. The trip was pretty straightforward with the exception of hitting one hell of a bump on departure from Scottsdale - we were climbing through 16,000' when some mechanical turbulence off the mountains caused a single jolt during which everyone on board hit our heads on the ceiling (yes, we all had our seatbelts on, and no it didn't matter) and stuff to go flying all around the cabin - not fun at all for our pax, especially the one person who was a nervous flyer to begin with. Kitsch went back and talked to them for a while, calming the pax down and explaining that the plane was fine and the turbulence was unlikely to occur again during our trip home. Still, I haven't felt a bump like that in quite some time. Oh, and on arrival into Toronto the ATIS (automated weather information system) was calling for winds down the runway at 7 knots, but tower was more accurately calling them as mostly down the runway at 35 knots, so it was a wee bit bumpy coming in - again, that was a fun conversation with the nervous pax who had to be assured that light turbulence is a relatively routine, if irritating part of flying.

And now for some pics 'n vids!

I played with a tilt-shift app on the iphone in lots of these pics - when done well, it's supposed to make everything look like a model railway set. Clearly the software isn't perfect, but it still makes some stuff look pretty cool.

The last vid is of Kitsch's masterful landing in Toronto during our windy arrival.






















A rather peaceful video - watching the clouds go by as we pass over Kansas.



Random babbling, again over Kansas. Apologies to Captain Dave for stealing his great tagline "Life on the line continues". You HAVE read Captain Dave's blog, right? It's in my top 3 all-time favorites.




Departing Wichita, pondering the thunderstorms off in the distance.




Closer to the T-storms, coming up on Kansas City MO, futher ponderousness.



Finally, Kitsch's masterful ILS into Toronto. Again, the actual winds were nearly 30 knots stronger than the ATIS was indicating, which added a bit of a thrill to an otherwise routine approach.