Above the volcano

Left Vancouver with about 2 hours delay, aboard a fairly old 767-300ER flying high above the clouds. Mara agreed to try and sleep a little.

The airplane reached speeds of a little over 1000 kph. I was thinking it must be either a glitch in the system or a very strong tail wind, since the documented maximum speed of the 767-300ER is 913 kph. But then I remembered how the Condor Kommandant promised he'll try to recover some of the time lost during the inbound flight and I really hoped he knows what he's doing. At least it seemed like a decent thing to say and do ... until we hit the first turbulence.

That's bad when the airplane flies at "normal" speeds of around 850 kph but at over 1000 kph it felt more like hitting an invisible wall before plunging on the connected invisible giant slide. The plane was twisting and turning erratically for a few minutes before a calm absolute took over and I had the courage to look around. Everybody was OK, at least physically.
I didn't have much time to relax before we hit the next turbulence. This time at reduced speed but still felt strongly. The airplane was shaking badly again and I had the feeling that the pilot decided to lose some altitude rather quickly, in exchange for more stability. It worked. The flight continued like this for another 30 minutes or so. Mara was still sleeping.

Eyjafjallajökull the volcano was quiet, no smoke and no ashes to further delay our landing in Frankfurt.