Who Says It's Hot In Phoenix?

In keeping with the West is Best theme....Another recent trip of mine took me out to Phoenix. By June of any given year, Phoenix is already well into the 100 degree days, but this day was an unusual exception. It was only 88 when we landed at 4 PM and very clear. No global warming here....

The arrivals from points East are routed either from the Northeast or the Southeast. Nothing is allowed to come straight in from the East due to restricted airspace. Today we flew the Northeast arrival over Payson, Fountain Hills, and then Mesa and Tempe.

The Superstition Mountains were well in view today as was the Salt River where I spent many hours over the years tubing down the river. Those were fun times.


Here's a shot of a long final approach to the West.On short final you pass just slightly North of Arizona State University. This is a good look at the campus. Sun Devil Stadium is also visible.

Not long after landing it was time to head back to Texas. Like the arrivals, Eastbound departures from PHX are always routed to the Northeast or the Southeast. Today we flew the Southeast departure. It took us pretty close to White Sands missile range in New Mexico.
Once over Western Texas, we passed through a developing storm front. Lots of cumulonimbus clouds were building. They would soon be full blown thunderstorms. The hole in the middle is where we passed through. Down at the surface we could see the dust being blown up from all the fields. This was a West Texas dust storm in the making!


The tops on this cell were well in the 50,000 ft range. There would be no climbing above this one in our MD-80 today!

In less than an hour we were parked at the gate, packing up our stuff, and would soon be headed for our respective homes.


For a look at some more of my photos, please aviate over to Plane & Simple.