Team "Adelle's Belles" race in the 2009 ARC!

Its raining

2009-07-11T23:50:00.002-04:00

Brief update: Job - starting in two days. Old house - no offers yet. New house - passed termite, radon, home and water inspections, but failed septic inspection! 35 year old system, never been upgraded. Explains the luxuriant vegetation growing in the front yard... Waiting to see what our next steps are, but this task will fall to the seller so I'm not worried.

Day 12 - Home at last!! with one last surprise

2009-06-29T20:28:00.005-04:00

We got up this morning around 7am and headed to the airport after breakfast to set off home from Atlantic. I must admit the Super 8 was starting to feel like home after three nights there! Many people had departed very early (Mary Unger left at 3am to get a ride to Omaha to catch a flight!), but we said goodbye to many friends, and also to Lori and Barry at the airport who have been wonderful to all of us.
Mary piloted the first leg, which we planned from Atlantic Iowa to Fort Wayne Indiana. The latter is a place that Linda and I stopped at on our way out to last year's Air Race Classic, and was exactly half way home. Over the last few flights we had noticed that the right magneto was dropping, and during our runup this morning it exceeded the 175rpm drop recommended in the POH. But we decided to head out, and had a backup plan for if we lost the right mag. We were probably a bit braver than usual because of the Mooney team this year, who completely lost a mag during the race but managed to fly that leg on the other mag and still placed in the top ten - great going girls! The flight to Fort Wayne went without a hitch. We filed IFR at 7000 and flew it in beautiful VFR weather. We kept a close eye on all engine parameters and everything looked good, although we thought there was a little more vibration than normal which made me sweat a bit. We got great tailwinds as it was a very windy day, and were cruising at 170-180kt most of the way. But it was also very windy on the ground, and Mary landed in 30kt, but fortunately they gave us runway 28 so it was pretty much all headwind and no crosswind. She did a great job as always.
Once on the ground, we taxied to the West ramp and did a runup. Now the right mag drop was more like 250rpm, and we decided enough was enough. Fortunately a mechanics shop was right there in the middle of three hangars on the West ramp (Mercury?), so we taxied over. When we had shut down and climbed out, we saw a lot of oil on the underside of the cowling, so we knew we had made a good decision to get it checked out. The first person we saw at Mercury was a lady A&P and avionics person (yay!). She knew Margaret Ringenberg! Margaret was a lady we raced with last year, a legendary pilot who had her own chapter in Tom Brokaw's book "The Greatest Generation". She was in her 80s, and still flying and racing, and was based at Fort Wayne. She died last year in her sleep while at the great annual airshow at Oshkosh, and we miss her.
Gary from Mercury worked on our plane while we got a ride over to the commercial side of the airport and had lunch. When we came back, he was already taxying it around with the cowl off. He explained that the right mag had the wrong seal on it (that's not the right word, I do know the right word but I'm so tired I can't remember it), and was leaking oil, and the mag had worked loose. I asked what the worst case scenario would have been, and he said the mag could eventually have come away all together, and we would have lost all our oil! Not good. I could have hugged him. He replaced it, tightened everything back up, retimed it, cleaned up the belly, charged us a minimal price, and we were good to go by 3pm. Thanks Gary and Mercury for really helping us out, we appreciated it so much!
On the runup leaving Fort Wayne, the mag drops were 55rpm and 65rpm, a vast improvement. We took off feeling much happier and confident in Adelle's airplane, which has worked so hard for us over the last month. We had a smooth flight at 7000ft just under the cloud deck, with great tailwinds. We felt so excited as Pennsylvania came closer, and we reached Akron Ohio then Pittsburgh. By the time we got to Harrisburg, we were in our home turf, where every landmark and curve in the terrain is familiar. There were very few clouds, and a soft late afternoon light as we flew over Lancaster and back to Pottstown Municipal, where I landed on 26. Nancy and the crew were still there and welcoming as always. We put the plane back in the hangar, loaded our bags into Arnie's car, and headed home.
I had left my car at Perkiomen Valley airport all week and it obviously didn't like it, because it seems to have some kind of brake problem (knocking sound at the back on braking). Just something else I'll have to fix over the next week or so!
So now we're back at home, after about 4600 nm of flying, totalling about 45 hours. We did really well in the race - we overcame obstacles we didn't anticipate - we learned many new things about flying the race and just flying in general - we made new friends - and we came home safe and whole. What a great 12 days! I hope everyone gets the chance in their life to have such an adventure, and to have such a wonderful friend as Mary to live it with.

Day 11 - Prize giving day (Part 2) - the results are in!!

2009-06-28T22:44:00.012-04:00

After my last posting, we dressed up in our finest and set off to the Atlantic Community Center for the final banquet. We chatted with our hosts of last night, the Trewets, and Mary presented Mr Trewet with a certificate for a birthday flight lesson for his granddaughter Caroline, who really wants to fly!
We sat with Mary and Cindy, Linda Moody, and Camelia and Laura, and had a lovely dinner. We knew we weren't in the top ten, but still the butterflies started as we wondered how we had done. After the speaker, a high ranking woman military flight nurse who gave a very interesting address honoring the WASP, they called every team up individually to give out our plaques and certificates for everyone who finished the race, and took our team photos. Then they started with the leg prizes. These are the first, second, third and fourth place airplanes for each individual leg, excluding the overall top ten winners. So our first good surprise of the night was that we won three of them!!! We won first place on the first leg (for which Mary was primary pilot); and also second place leg 8 and fourth place leg 7. For each prize you get a little medallion, and a small amount of cash which in our case totalled $110 I think (between us!). We were thrilled to get these. Mary and Cindy also won a leg prize which was awesome.

Then they did the collegiate prizes; then the top ten winners were announced. Many of our friends did really well, and the overall first place winners were Classic 7, Erin and Kelly, who are lovely and really deserved to win. Then finally they produced the overall rankings. So ..... Mary and I placed 14 out of 32!!! We are really pleased and excited about this. Last year was our first year racing, and our respective teams ranked in the 20s, and we had one leg prize between us. This year was our second year racing, and we came up to 14th with three leg prizes. So we really feel that our performance showed that we built on what we learned last year, and worked well as a team.

So now we are going to bed tired but happy! Tomorrow we'll fly back to PA in two legs over about 6 hours, Mary taking the first leg. It has been an amazing trip, and we feel great about successfully completing our second transcontinental air race with honors. Also, we have really enjoyed all our fellow racers this year, reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones, and the atmosphere has been so friendly and collegial. But it will be nice to be home after almost two weeks away, and we are looking forward to seeing family and friends again! Hopefully I'll post tomorrow night with details of our trip home.

Day 11 - Prize giving day (Part 1)

2009-06-28T17:26:00.016-04:00

I will write up today now, before the banquet, then post the final results after the banquet.

Today we had a mandatory breakfast and All Racer's briefing at the Atlantic Community Center. The judges and timer each presented a report, then people gave praise for things that worked well and raised some issues that might be improved in the future. One of the racers broke her arm last night while having dinner with a host family, so the list of injuries is growing longer! The back of Mary's ankle is now an impressive bruised color, but the swelling is coming down and it seems to be healing very well. Then we drove over to the airport to refuel our airplanes, and picked up a guy who had just flown in representing Wings of Hope. This is a charitable organization that the Citabria race team is sponsoring, so he had flown in to be at the banquet. We dropped him back at the hotel, then went for lunch (Chinese, with fortune cookies).

At 1pm we joined another tour we had prebooked, to see the Iowa Aviation Museum in Greenville. Also with us were various racers including Mary and Cyndy, Linda, Sandy, Minnetta, Bernice, and the Mooney team girls. The museum was on a small airport in the middle of rolling cornfields, and was delightful. The collection included a Stearman, a Taylorcraft, two DeHavilland Gypsy Moths, J2 and J3 Piper Cubs, plus various other airplanes and some very scary looking early gliders. Bernice Heydu, our racing WASP, said that the Taylorcraft was the airplane she learned to fly in, so we took pictures of her with the plane. The Iowa Aviators Hall of Fame included Netta Southern, a woman who taught Amelia Earhart to fly! Just got back from there, off to the banquet in an hour or so to get our final positions....

Day 10 - Scoring day

2009-06-28T00:29:00.006-04:00

Mary got up at 6am this morning to drive Linda to the airport, so she could fly back to PA in the Cirrus. Linda called us later in the afternoon to let us know she had a great flight home, and made it back in two legs. She got great tailwinds and made 185 kt - shame we didn't see tailwinds like that during the race!
When Mary got back, we had breakfast and went to meet with the chief scorer. We were relieved to hear that his scores aligned pretty closely with our own records, and we had no penalties. We were quite pleased with our score - tailwinds were mostly nonexistent during this race but yet we scored high on some legs and had no negative legs. As we began to hear the other teams discussing their results during the day, we started to get our hopes up - we heard scores much lower than ours, including negative scoring legs or penalties. We started to think - could it be? might we make the top ten this year?! But later in the afternoon we heard that the top 12 racers had already been called to let them know their planes would be inspected, and alas we weren't called. We were a little bit crushed, but a few glasses of wine soon put us right.
Anyway, to backtrack to earlier in the day - after meeting the scorer and doing some laundry, we headed out on a tour that we had prebooked. Also on the bus were many of our racer friends including Mary and Cyndy, Nancy and Sherry, Linda and Cubby. The tour went to the Hitchcock House, a National Historic Landmark and stop on the underground railroad; followed by a delicious lunch in Our Daily Bread, a charming restaurant in Griswold; followed by the Cass County museum; and antique shops in Walnut. We even got to see a field where Amelia Earhart landed once! The story is that when she called Atlantic to get a ride and said "hello, this is Amelia Earhart", the guy she called said "yeah, and I'm Henry Ford"! But I guess she got a ride eventually. This part of Iowa is all gently rolling hills, corn fields, wind farms and small single highway towns, but it has a quiet charm.
We heard more discussion about how the other racers have been getting along today. Turns out many people got calls from the judges asking them to come and discuss potential issues that might require penalties, which is all part of the scoring process. There was some controversy over the experimental use of the new electronic trackers that we all carried with us, so we'll see how that all works out.
Our day ended with each of the racers going for dinner with local host families. Mary and I went with about ten other racers to Dr Trewitt, the local dentist and his family and friends including daughter Laurie, and grandchildren Caroline and Drew. The family gave us a warm welcome to their home, and we had a wonderful dinner of perfectly done steaks and homemade cherry pie. We were made to feel really at home. Back at the hotel we stopped in one of the racers' rooms for drinks, and now are ready for bed. Tomorrow is final results day! I will post pictures tomorrow.

Day 9 - Final race day - we made it!!!

2009-06-27T00:36:00.014-04:00

Mary and I decided not to get up for the 5am breakfast in Racine. We only had one leg left to do, and a whole day of high pressure to do it in, so why hurry? So we slept in till 700am or so, then had breakfast and left for the airport with one other team. Linda had left very early to ensure she got off before the racers, and arrived in Atlantic in time to see them all finish.

We lifted off about 830am from Racine, came back around to do the flyby to continue, then headed off to the race terminus in Atlantic Iowa, a 332nm trip. We alternated pilot and copilot roles during this trip, and enjoyed a smooth flight with a pretty good tailwind coming off of Lake Michigan, although it dissipated towards Iowa. We overtook one of the slowest planes in the race, the Citabria (which has a handicap of about 103 kt) around Des Moines. This is a tailwheel airplane and these girls are doing a great job on the race. 332nm is pretty far in a Citabria without refueling, and they later told us they had to manage fuel very carefully and throttle back to conserve fuel, and they did so very successfully. Other than that, we didn't see any other planes. Many had taken advantage of the early morning departure, so when we did the flyby at Atlantic about 2/3 of the race planes were already there. Linda and some of the racers cheered and clapped as we taxied up to our parking spot, and did "we are not worthy" bows to Mary! A photographer took our pictures, then we had to unpack the plane and hand the keys and tracker to a race official immediately so our plane could be impounded. The Atlantic ground crew were transporting racers around in a couple of old army vehicles, and they brought up an ancient field ambulance complete with stretcher for Mary, and insisting on taking us back to the FBO with the alarm blaring - it was quite funny.
After hanging out for an hour or so, the three of us got a ride to the hotel with another racer from last year, Karen Workman. Turns out that Atlantic Iowa is indeed a very small town, and the one hotel is not exactly luxurious. But we racers are a hardy bunch! We all took a nap for a couple hours, then got delivery of a rental car, and went back to the airport for the welcome party. It was really nice - it was a lovely warm night, and they opened a hangar with a P-51 Mustang in it, and we had grilled chicken with all the trimmings. The racers, their families, race officials and local people all milled around swapping stories and signing each others' race programs. About 15 of us went to a local bar afterwards for drinks, and only just got back.

The other good news of the day was that Mary called the hospital in Lufkin, as the radiologist was supposed to call her back and never did. Her ankle is not broken! she has a sprain and soft tissue damage. This is much better news.
Tomorrow we meet with the scorer to finalize our scores. Then, the top twelve planes get impounded for inspection - if your plane is impounded, you know you have a very good chance of being in the top ten. If not, oh well, you know for sure that you didn't make the top ten! A nail biting time.

Day 8 - Race day 3. Team Adelles Belles rises again!

2009-06-25T21:24:00.026-04:00

Today started with a 530am wake up call from Mary. We packed up and had breakfast in the hotel in Sparta Tennessee, then got a ride to the airport.

Mary, Linda and Alison in front of N29SP, Sparta Tennessee, early morning.

We had obtained an outlook briefing the night before, and knew there might be some problems with weather after 11am due to convective activity associated with a cold front moving in from the North, so we wanted to get away early. Our first leg was 315 nm to Jacksonville Illinois. It was another beautiful day, with fog settled in the valleys between the rolling Tennessee hills, very peaceful. We encountered our only cloud so far on our race flight path, a horizontal smoke column from a power plant that we had to climb over. Compared to all the cloud and weather issues we had to deal with last year, this didn't even register! We flew a good leg, and I think we have definitely got our groove back as a team. Mary did a great job with nav/comms and got us through airspace without any deviations, and we coasted along low enough to read the signs on the bigger storefronts. Not a great tailwind on this leg, but we didn't slow up too much either. The leg ended with the usual high speed low altitude flyby - this one was interesting because we had to stay high over the prison 3 nm off the end of the runway, as the prison officers had said they would shoot airplanes that came too low! This left us hot and high close in for the flyby, so we had to dive down to the flyby altitude in the small distance available. We pretty much smoked on the way in, with the airspeed indicator showing 165 kt!

We arrived in Jacksonville mid-morning, and the folks there hooked us up with fuel, cold water, and food. Linda arrived close behind us in her Cirrus - she is really enjoying following the race. Lots of racers were there in from Jacksonville, and people who had stayed in Grenada the previous night also began to arrive, so the terminal building was busy. We met a lovely lady who had flown in the 1977 Powder Puff Derby Commemorative flight, and had a great hat with lots of pins from that event (see picture). She and the other volunteers put out lots of food. Mary, Linda and I found some very comfortable recliners which we set up shop on, from which we watched the weather channel, called the briefers, and tried to make plans. Everyone was trying to decide the best thing to do in light of the incoming cold front. The weather systems all reported a widespread area of high atmospheric instability over the central plains, and there were already a couple large areas of thunderstorm activity just to the North and West of the route. Storms were predicted to be isolated to scattered, but severe. Once of the racers reported that friends of hers who are stormchasers were on their way to Racine Wisconsin (our next stop) because of the high probability of tornados! Some people left, but many others waited around like us considering the weather reports. By lunchtime we had pretty much decided to stay over in Jacksonville and complete the last two legs on the final day, which we knew was forecast to be gorgeous weather due to a large high pressure system. But we continued to hang out at the airport, which in any case was the most interesting place to be. At one point I went out into the blistering heat to clean up the airplane, and ended up letting four local children who had been hanging out all day watching the racers climb into our plane.

By about 2pm, the promised widespread convective activity hadn't materialized, although there was still one heavy area to the West of the route. We started to think that maybe it wouldn't get any worse, and called the briefer again. We changed our minds (a woman's prerogative!), and decided to get going anyway and risk the outside chance of isolated severe weather. So we cancelled our hotel reservations, leapt into the plane (Linda close behind), and took off for our flyby to continue.

The 210 nm flight to Racine Wisconsin was also fine, and this time we picked up some great tailwinds. We saw the severe weather way off to our West, but weren't even close. We flew under the Chicago airspace ceiling, and Mary got us through Peoria and Kenosha airspace to Racine. The flyby went great, and as we pulled up we flew over Lake Michigan. The folks in Racine put our planes in hangars, which was very nice, and drove us to the Marriott, where a whole crowd of racers was staying, and we had dinner in the restaurant there with Linda and the other racers.

We will probably get an early night tonight and not hurry tomorrow morning, as we have all day until 5pm to get to Atlantic Iowa, the terminus. Mary is in a lot of pain again as it is evening and her foot has been in use all day. She is doing great on the crutches and gets in and out of the plane fine, but the pain definitely wears her out so she is exhausted by the evening. Poor Mary, she's a trooper but this is a lot for her to stand. I just hope we win! Imagine the kudos of winning despite having a broken leg - that would probably be a first in 80 years of women's air racing!

The first photo shows what racer 43 looked like as we overtook it 20 nm outside Racine! The second shows final approach to land at Racine, runway 4.

Day 7 - Race day 2. Making good progress in the deep South.

2009-06-24T22:29:00.017-04:00

Here is the route picture again, so you can see how far we have come. To recap, yesterday we covered three legs and got from Denver to Lufkin Texas. As you will see, today we covered another three legs and are now in Sparta Tennessee, having flown over or through Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and at least one other state that I've forgotten! In total we have raced about 1500 nm so far, 800 yesterday and 700 today, out of a total of 2360 nm.

This morning we declined our 5am alarm call and slept another two hours, as we were exhausted after the medical emergencies of the day before. The other good thing about this was by the time we got up the hotel was serving breakfast, and we hadn't eaten the evening before so were starving. Sweet Sid came to pick us up and bring us to the airport - thanks again Sid!

We packed up and left Lufkin Texas by about 9am, and had a good 301 nm ride to Russellville Arkansas. It was another beautiful day, starting out hazy but ending up quite clear. Of course its very hot, about 101 degrees on the ground in Texas and not much better flying along at low level. The Arrow has floor vents but no ceiling vents, so we are getting pretty hot and drinking bottles and bottles of water. I think Arkansas is my new favorite state - it was absolutely beautiful flying over the rolling tree-covered hills, lakes and swamps. A very pretty state. We have settled in to our new mode of flying, riding the thermals and the hills up, and then accelerating back down them to pick up speed. This must be how birds fly.

I have been doing the flying today, with Mary doing navigation and communication. Mary's ankle felt much better this morning, and she was OK walking around on crutches with her foot up. But she is wearing the brace and after many hours in the plane it was swollen and hurt more. We propped her leg up under the dash on a bag of approach plates which helped a bit, but I think as the day wore on it got more uncomfortable. We did a quick turnaround in Russellville, after having donuts and water with the great volunteers there. They just opened a very nice new terminal building this month, and were having their dedication ceremony the same afternoon.
The next leg was a relatively short one, 184 nm to Grenada Mississippi. I think it was on this leg that we flew over the Mississippi river, which looked very brown and tropical and was winding its way through thickly wooded hills. I bet there were alligators down there. We also flew over a cropduster, which was neat. Grenada had a lovely FBO with all kinds of treats for us, including hot dogs, banana nut bread, and potato chip cookies which I never had before but which were delicious. They also had comfortable squishy reclining chairs, so we put our feet up and relaxed for a while. I had a quick nap.

At 4pm we decided to continue to Sparta Tennessee (249 nm), and had a beautiful flight in the late afternoon light. We are now pretty tired, and set up in a hotel in town. Linda Evans, our good friend, and my race partner in 2008, flew down to Sparta today from Philly in a Cirrus just to meet up with us! It was great to see her, and we all went out for dinner together. She is planning to meet us at the terminus.
So in two days we have completed 6 out of 9 legs, with two days left to complete the remaining three legs. Even though we didn't have good winds again today, I think its good that we got this much of the race behind us, because tomorrow a large stationary front with lots of precipitation and thunderstorms is lying right across the center of the country. We're not sure if we'll be able to get out in time, but even if Thursday is a washout Friday is predicted to be good weather, so we should be able to make it to the finish by the 5pm deadline.

Day 6 - Race Day 1. Do you want the good news or the bad news??

2009-06-23T22:52:00.014-04:00

The day started with a 6am briefing and breakfast at the hotel, then we all got rides out to the airport under brilliant blue skies. Our planes were lined up on the ramp. We preflighted, got in, and waited for the signal to start our engines! Then we all taxied out in race order and released to depart on runway 10, in very quick successions. Mary flew the first leg, and we climbed up and out on the 120 heading that would take us to our first stop, Liberal Kansas. This was a 238 nm leg that should take us about 1 hour 45 minutes flying at full throttle. Despite the prognosis for unfavorable winds out of the Southeast, we picked up tailwinds of 12-20k t and made very good time to Liberal, with an average ground speed of 144 kt which was well above our handicap of 128.61 kt. The leg ended with the first flyby, where we had to fly full throttle down to 200 feet above ground level and zoom past the timing line at low altitude, before flying out to cool down our engines and come around to land and pick up fuel.

At Liberal we did a fast turnaround, and set off on the next leg which was 276nm to Sweetwater Texas, with me flying left seat. Again we made much better winds than predicted. We have taken a completely different approach to what we did last year. Instead of trying to predict what altitude the best winds are at, and wasting time climbing and descending to find them, we are flying at low altitude. Also, instead of trying to maintain a precise altitude, we are using the thermals and downdrafts to pick up speed, and are allowing the plane to follow them, so our altitude varies by hundreds of feet sometimes. Its too early to say, but we think this approach might work quite well...

At Sweetwater, we stopped again for gas after the flyby. Airport ground staff were very helpful, as at all the stops, giving us water and snacks and welcoming us. We also got interviewed by a reporter from the local paper! Sweetwater was home to the WASP (Women's Airforce Service Pilots), and we'd have loved to stay and see the museum, but with good weather we really wanted to continue. But we thought of our own Easter PA WASP Anne Shields! One of the race airplanes is carrying a WASP passenger Bernice Heydu, which is awesome.

This is where the bad news kicks in - are you ready?! While I was inside getting a weather briefing for the next leg by phone, Mary went outside. After a few minutes I saw her come back into the building, but now with a limp, a black eye, and a skinned shoulder and knees. Turns out she ran across the tarmac to help tow an airplane, got her foot caught, and fell headlong. Her ankle hurt very much, but she insisted on going on, and would not hear any discussion. So we set off on the third leg of the day, with me flying instead of Mary, 301 nm to Lufkin Texas. Mary did the radios and nav of course, and we did a great leg, and made great tailwinds.

Once we landed in Lufkin, it became apparent that Mary couldn't put any weight on her foot. Our wonderful new friend Sid Love drove us all the way to the ER, and after a lengthy wait for X rays etc it turns out that Mary has indeed broken her ankle, although it is more of a chip and not a displaced fracture or anything really bad. They put her in a cast to immobilize and gave her crutches, and that is pretty much how she will stay until she gets home. Thank you to the hospital staff, including Jo Anne, for your help.

So here we are at the hotel, completely exhausted, with a 5am wakeup call coming up. We completed three out of nine legs in the first day, with great times, but one of our pilots is injured. It is most likely that we'll continue the race with me flying and Mary doing right seat duties, but we'll decide that in the morning when we get up!

Mary in the ER, looking happier than she felt.

Day 5 - The adrenaline builds!

2009-06-22T18:33:00.003-04:00

Last day before the race! The day began (after the now customary trip to IHOP) with an 8am briefing on all nine flyby procedures. We were advised to fly particularly accurately approaching one of the stops that requires a high speed flyby at 200 agl near a prison, because the guards have apparently assured us that they will shoot at planes that get too close! We also reviewed the start procedures for leaving Centennial tomorrow; and had a safety briefing; and a weather briefing by Dale from Lockheed Martin.
We went to the first part of the New Racers briefing at 1pm, where they described how to execute dual flybys. These occur when two racers arrive at the timing mark very close together, and both wish to execute the low speed flyby, rather than one party break away for spacing and thereby losing time. They were not allowed last year, so we were interested to see what the procedure is. I hope we won't actually get to do one of these. I have graphed out all the race teams including their speed and order of take off from Denver, so we can see which planes will be bunched close to us approaching the first stop in Liberal Kansas. This is a short leg (238 nm), and there will be 5 or 6 planes that will be right on top of us, so we will be watching and planning to make sure we can get our flyby slot without getting in anyone's way.
In between all of this I was taking phone messages and running to the hotel printer and fax machine trying to manage my house buying/ selling activities. Then, just to add an extra dollop of stress onto the whole situation, I broke a tooth while listening to the briefing and eating candies! It didn't hurt at all, but I was worried that it might suddenly start bothering me in the middle of the race, which would have been bad. How fortunate then that Colorado 99s volunteer Mary-Lou Pohl was on duty this afternoon, and her husband Raymond is a dentist!! Marylou drove me over to his office, and he confirmed that the tooth was chipped but not badly. He ground it down a bit so it was smooth and sent me on my way. Marylou and Raymond are both Mooney pilots, and it was great talking with them about mountain flying and air racing. I am truly grateful to both of you for helping me out!
While I was doing this, Mary finished the New Racers briefing then headed out to the airport to top up the oil and bring back the tranceiver for charging. We have both been running about all day, and are looking forward to an early dinner, then a chance to brief tomorrow's route, then an early bed.
No photos today, because there wasn't much to photograph, plus my new camera appears to have died although Mary's is fine. We'll definitely post photos tomorrow to show the first leg of the race though. We think the weather will be great Tues and Weds, but more iffy on Thurs, and so would like to get 3 legs under our belt tomorrow. The first three legs are Denver to Liberal Kansas; then on to Sweetwater Texas; then on to Lufkin Texas, a total of just over 800 nm. Hopefully tomorrow we will be blogging from Texas!

Day 4 - Aviation heritage and legacy

2009-06-21T17:31:00.014-04:00

I slept in till 830 today, then joined Mary and eight other racers at IHOP for breakfast (yes, again - women air racers do like pancakes and coffee for breakfast!). We then took a ride over to a hangar at the airport for an event organized by aviation artist Joe Jones, plus Nick Sparks and Amanda Pope, the producers of a new documentary on legendary aviatrix Pancho Barnes. The event was to honor women in aviation, and particularly us air racers. Mary and I each got an autographed poster of the Joe's artwork for the movie, and we got to talk to all of them. Then there were short speeches by the local Fox news chief meteorologist, who is also a pilot; by the first woman airline pilot Emily Howell Warner; and by our own Gene Nora Jessen, test pilot, racer, and one of the Mercury 13. Mary and I both had tears in our eyes as Emily Warner described her long road into professional aviation, at a time when she trained many men to fly for the airlines, but wasn't allowed to fly for them herself. Like many women who have fought the great battles in the struggle for equality, she was funny, self-deprecating, and matter of fact about what she has done.
Mary and the Purdue collegiate team, Juliana and Lauren.

Then we saw the start of the new Pancho Barnes movie, which was great. Pancho was voiced by Kathy Bates, and the movie was narrated by Tom Skerritt. Pancho was a larger than life character who received a traditional Victorian upbringing and was wed early to a clergyman, but broke away to go work on a banana boat disguised as a man, during which time she got mixed up in the Mexican revolution! Then she learned to fly, and became a great speed pilot who participated in the first Powder Puff Derby (predecessor of the current Air Race Classic) in 1929, along with Amelia Earhart. She is most famous for running the Happy Bottom Riding Club in the high California desert, which was the favorite hangout of all the test pilots from what is now Edwards Air Force Base. She was a hard drinking, hard living woman who swore like a trooper, and an excellent pilot as well. The movie had some really funny moments.

Gene Nora talking to a young fan. This little girl already has 6 hours in airplanes. Her first ambition is to be the only woman to fly a triplane; and then she wants to successfully complete Amelia Earhart's round the world, trans-Pacific trip. She was awesome!
Unfortunately we had to leave early for the All Racers briefing. This only took two hours (compared to 7 hours last year), which was a relief, and we were reminded about all the safety and planning aspects of the race which was very useful.

The flyby procedures for each stop have now been posted - here is a picture of the procedure at Jacksonville Il.

Tonight we have a Start Banquet, so Mary and I cleaned up for that. We haven't eaten all day so we appreciated the food. Each team was called up to receive their charm depicting the 2009 race route. Some pics from the event...

Day 3 - Official paperwork and inspection day

2009-06-20T19:02:00.017-04:00

The day started with us meeting the girls from last night in the lobby to go to breakfast at IHOP. Also joining us was Heather, a first time racer who had flown all the way over from Australia. Her race partner had fallen sick at the very last minute, and US pilot Linda Meeks had stepped in to fill the position. These two racers did not meet in person until today, but they're both great and we think they will do really well together. We completed registration, and the credentials check where race officials check that we have our pilot licenses, insurance form, biannual flight review, medical and other required information. We then headed over to the airport.

It was a cold and windy morning, but we got the race number decals applied to the fuselage and underside of the wings without too much swearing. We then wandered down to hangar 21 where Verne and the other race mechanics were conducting the mandatory airplane inspections. There was a line of planes building up, waiting their turn.

Below are Kelly and Erin, Classic 7, working on their Beechcraft Debonair; and Cynthia and Mary, Classic 25, working on their Cessna 172M.

I called my friend Ian Critchley, who lives in Boulder. The last time I saw him was when I visited Boulder for the 99s Convention a couple years ago, and so it was great to hear that he had the time to pop over to Centennial despite the short notice. Mary and I headed over to the restaurant at the Denver Jet Center for lunch, then she headed off to do a girl scout event while I caught up with Ian.

We headed back over to the airplane around 230pm for our own airplane inspection. Mary taxied the plane over and conducted the static runup check; then the mechanics took off the cowling and looked through their checklist of items to make sure we had not performed any sneaky or race-illegal modifications on the plane. It seemed to go much faster than last year! The one bummer was that it turns out that since our black race numbers were stuck on over the brown and orange fuselage stripes, there was not sufficient contrast and we really should have got ones with a 3 inch white outline. I was kicking myself for not having thought of this when I ordered them, but we were certainly not the only team in the same predicament. Fortunately Terry Carbonell had the forethought to bring a roll of white contact paper for just such a contingency, and we were able to cut out and stick on forms to provide the required contrast. However I don't think either of us are going to be winning prizes for arts and crafts any time soon - our work might look OK from 200 feet below, but does not stand up to close inspection!

Made the half mile walk back to the jet center for about the sixth time today, and got a ride back over to the hotel to change, then back again for the Welcome Reception. I am having a panic attack about buying a house in PA while air racing in CO, but felt slightly better after a couple of beers. We got to meet old friends from last year, including Linda's and my Mother Bird from last year, Caroline Baldwin, plus Linda Street-Ely, Carolyn van Newkirk, test pilot and Mercury 13 astronaut Gene Nora Jessen, Anne Marie Radel and Julieann Sikora (Classic 1), Minnetta Gardiner and Linda Moody (Classic 4), Kelly Burris and Erin Recke (Classic 7); as well as new friends such as Dee Bond from NZ. Came back for dessert in the hotel with Laura, Camelia and Bill. It was a nice day, despite no flying, but we are now are pretty exhausted. Two more grounded days to go until race start on Tuesday.

Day 2 - We made it to Denver!

2009-06-19T22:30:00.015-04:00

Left St Louis this morning after breakfast, filing IFR to Salina Kansas. The St Louis airport is enormous, and full of SouthWest airplanes, but about 15 taxiways and one runway were closed for work, so it took ages to get cleared to taxi to the active runway. Mary took off around 9am and we headed West once more. We flew at 8000 ft to avoid turbulence lower down, but once again headwinds slowed us down. But the choices we made yesterday really paid off - by flying a more Southerly route to St Louis, we avoided a whole bunch of weather to the North today. As the flight progressed the clouds thickened, and the GPS showed active cells fairly close to our route. Since it was such a clear day under the clouds, we got a nice view of one cell that had built fast and was raining heavily a few miles away. We flew this leg at full throttle all the way to simulate race conditions, and were pleasantly surprised that at 8000 ft the engine could be leaned out to only 11 gallons per hour even at this high setting. Approaching Salina, a cold front started to move in across the route, so we landed a few miles short at Manhattan Kansas, known to the locals as "the little apple"!.

Mary's legs, and the instrument panel showing the GPS496.

PS Thanks to Kenny for fixing the autopilot - we really appreciate it!

In Manhattan we borrowed a crew car and drove out for lunch. The lady at the desk told us "its a small red compact with a lot of hail damage". Bizarrely, when we started to look around the parking lot we saw at least four cars meeting that description, so we had to go back inside and get more specific directions! We had a good lunch, and by the time we arrived back at the airport the frontal weather had passed over.

I departed on a clearance for Akron Colorado, into blue skies with little puffy white clouds to play in. Again we flew this leg at full throttle to simulate race conditions, leaned out to 11 GPH. The plane did great, except that (annoyingly) the gear in transit light came on again, again with a definite drop in airspeed indicating we were probably getting some drag once the gear had shifted. This time we recycled the gear and the problem went away.

Meantime, the weather just kept getting better. We were flying across the vast open planes of central Kansas, with a reported visibility of 70 miles although I'm pretty sure it was more like 150 miles. You can practically see the curvature of the earth under these conditions, and the land just stretches away in a patchwork of farms and fields for as far as the eye can see in all directions. Mary had fun flirting with the Kansas City Center controllers, and we talked to another collegiate race team on their way to Denver. Once we crossed the frontal barrier and into Colorado, the winds shifted and we picked up a 15-25 knot tailwind, with ground speeds up to 150 kt! We were making such good time that we amended our destination to go all the way to Denver Centennial, our ultimate destination. All in all, Pottstown PA to Denver CO in about 13 hours.

Approach to landing, 17R at Denver Centennial!

Touched down in Denver around 4pm local time, and taxied to our assigned FBO, the Denver JetCenter. Frank, the husband of a local 99, kindly drove us to the Sheraton where we were staying. We took a shower and just missed the closing of registration, which we will take care of tomorrow. We met a couple of other racers that we remembered from last year, including Camellia Smith, her husband Bill, and her copilot Laura Berry (racer 15), as well as Cindy Kerr and her new partner Mary Unger (racer 25), and we all crammed into Bill's rental car and went off for a really nice dinner.

Day 1 - 6.5 hours flying to St Louis Missouri!

2009-06-18T18:15:00.017-04:00

Our adventure began early this morning, when we met at Perkiomen Valley airport in the pouring rain, with the goal of flying to the Air Race Classic start in Denver Colorado in time for the start deadline of 11am on Saturday. It was cold, grey and miserable as we loaded our gear into the plane, and Arnie topped off the tanks for us. The weather services showed a heavy weather system over most of the East coast, with thunderstorms embedded throughout. But it was moving away to the East, and we could see a way through to clearer weather out West. We filed IFR to Columbus Ohio, with Mary flying the first leg. It was raining hard when we took off, and almost immediately went into the cloud. Mary climbed to 6000 feet as we contacted Philadelphia Approach. It was turbulent and a complete white out, and at one point Philly had to relay communications to us via another pilot because although we could hear them, they couldn't hear us. Mary said "this SUCKS!". We were in the soup all the way to Pittsburgh, but then we started to break out of the cloud tops and see blue sky above. Near Altoona we crossed a convergence of two fronts and the weather went down again, but although the cloud cover remained the bases were coming up at the airports further West. We took the ILS 28 approach into Columbus, but were able to approach and land visually. It was a tough 3 hour leg, and Mary did great.

We went to Odyssey Aviation at Columbus and managed to scrounge some fruit while the plane was refuelled. We picked up our voice messages, and I found that I may have bought a new house!! as the sellers have accepted my offer. Cool.

I originally intended the next leg to end in Peoria Illinois, but the weather showed a large convective system bearing down on Peoria from the NW at 35 kts, and there were severe weather watches and convective sigmets for the whole area. So we figured out that if we went further South we could avoid it, and filed to St Louis Missouri instead. I took off into nice clear weather. Around Terre Haute we heard some other female voices on the frequency headed West (call sign ...701...), so Mary asked if they were on their way to the Air Race Classic too, and they said yes! We think you guys might be one of the collegiate teams. We picked up headwinds over 30 kt at 6000 feet which were really slowing us down, so we descended to 4000 feet. The winds were better there, but there was a thick cloud layer so I also logged a chunk of instrument time. I was worried that at our slower ground speed we didn't have enough fuel to get to St Louis, but we did, and were given a visual approach to 28L following a regional jet. We left N29SP at Signature Aviation and checked into the Drury hotel for the night. We have no less than three free drinks coupons (each!), so are about to go down to the bar and restaurant for some real food.

Disgusting picture - when you're flying in cloud and have finished with your gum, there's no time to dispose of it nicely! Sorry Adelle.

Proof that we made it to St Louis - and that its almost 100 degrees here, which is why we look hot.

Mary unpacking the plane at St Louis.

Final preparations

2009-06-16T23:19:00.004-04:00

Last night the mechanics did a final oil change; and fixed the issue with the "gear in transit" light, which was on too sensitive a setting. We have a part on order that should get the autopilot working again, that will reduce our workload on long legs somewhat, and we hope it will come in from California tomorrow. Today I flew the plane back to Perkiomen from Pottstown Muni with Mary right seat (1400 overcast), and we washed and waxed the N29SP, with the help of Mary's husband Arnie Wunder. All we have to do now is put on the number "8" decals. The current plan is to depart Thursday morning early - there's no good weather day out East this week, so we'll just file IFR and set off early to avoid the thunderstorms.

Still working out the kinks

2009-06-14T22:22:00.004-04:00

Yet another bad weather morning. Set IFR off for Cape May to pick up Barbara and go down to the air circus in Virginia, but the 800 foot overcast over NJ didn't lift so we decided to make one of our (now frequent) diversions and go out to Pittsburgh instead. The clouds dissipated completely round about York, and Mary completed the flight into Alleghany County in bright beautiful weather. About 20 miles out, the "gear in transit" warning light came on and stayed on for 5-10 minutes, but we made a normal approach and landing. Once on the ground we called Andy Landis, instructor and Arrow expert, who explained that this probably was nothing to be concerned about and told us some things to look out for on the way home. Good thing we did ask, because about 5 minutes into the flight home the light came on again and stayed on the whole flight. The gear didn't come down, but the plane developed a distinct yaw to the left so we think the left gear might be drifting out of the well somewhat. Another thing for the mechanic to look at when he works on the plane tomorrow! While all this was going on, I put my hand down the side of the seat to pick something up, and some sharp edge gave me a 9 inch scrape in my forearm which bled all over the trim. But despite this I bravely flew on and successfully completed the flight back to Pottstown Muni. Altogether we have put 16 hours on the engine following its top overhaul, so it is ready for its oil change.

A warm and humid week

2009-06-13T18:49:00.008-04:00

The picture is me at Perkiomen standing in between the yellow Cherokee I share with my two partners; and the white Arrow that Mary and I are racing.

Despite humidity and thunderstorms, Mary and I have continued building time on the overhauled engine. Friday dawned with a low overcast and mist, but by the afternoon it had cleared up enough for us to go flying. I had had precisely zero sleep the night before, so Mary flew the whole time and I pretended to do nav/comm duties from the right seat in between naps. In fact I was so tired I actually can't remember where we went! but I think we just flew out West for a while. Today (Saturday) we were promised a better day for weather, but we started out with broken cloud at about 3000 ft with a 7000 ft overcast, and the lower layer pushed up cumulus and thunderstorms as the day warmed up. I felt much better having caught up on my sleep, and I flew left seat out of Pottstown with the intention of going to Akron Ohio to build some hours, first stopping at Lancaster to pick up some charts. But it was not to be. West of Harrisburg we climbed to 4500 ft to clear the mountains, and started to get into the cloud tops. We asked for 5000 ft and climbed again, but now the visibility started to go below minimums. So we asked for a diversion and filed IFR back to Lancaster. On the approach to Lancaster we were descended all the way down to 3000 ft, and still found ourselves in cloud. We also picked up the Pottstown weather and realized it had gone down to 2700 ft overcast. So we diverted again, this time IFR directly to the airplane's home base, Pottstown Municipal. But as we got close to the airport, we saw on the GPS a building cell with Level 2 returns less than half a mile from the airport, and it soon became visible out the window as well. So we diverted yet again! this time back to Perkiomen Valley, where Mary and I are usually based. We started the VOR 9 approach in cloud, but broke out about 2200 ft and landed visually. So in just about 2 hours of flying, we only managed to visit Lancaster and Perkiomen!! But we got yet more IFR and teamwork practice in. I should add that since Mary is a former air traffic controller, the kind of intensive radio work needed for a flight like this is much easier, since she is very quick, and knows exactly how to ask for what we want!

The schedule for the rest of the week is: tomorrow more flying; Monday fix the autopilot and change the oil; Tuesday wash and wax the plane and stick on the number "8" decals; Wednesday pack and check the weather; Thursday or Friday depart.

Cape May for lunch

2009-06-08T23:20:00.003-04:00

Mary and I took Arnie down to Cape May NJ today to meet our friend and fellow racer Barbara for lunch. IMC both ways, again, with a lot of afternoon humidity leading to thick haze and cumulus build up. The plane is starting to feel very comfortable and familiar, and we split responsibilities the way we'll probably do it during the race, with the non-flying pilot doing radios and navigation. We have to put another 10-12 hours on the plane between now and Monday to get an oil change in before we leave for Colorado, so will try to fly every day.

Finally - a dual flight just the two of us!

2009-06-07T00:08:00.015-04:00

Mary and I met up today to fly out to Frederick MD in N29SP. We went to support the Sugarloaf Chapter of the 99s who were having a yard sale and barbecue to raise funds, because they will host the terminus of the Air Race Classic in 2010! The weather was supposed to improve mid-morning, but the overcast was still around 2000 feet by 11am. We waited around at N47 for a while, then decided to file IFR and go. This is Mary starting up the plane, just before she took off, and flew about 40 minutes of solid IMC before letting down into Frederick. Well done Mary!

Here are some snapshots from Frederick: Mary talking to Carlo in between Young Eagles flights; Seth standing next to her birthday flowers and helping with the barbecue; Lin waiting to taxi in the C172; and Rose, Mary and Alison having a chat. It was great to see you all!

I filed IFR to fly home, and most of the flight was over a beautiful bright white overcast. Here we are approaching N47, and the overcast is breaking up.

Here is Mary talking to Tom, head guy at N47 and instructor extraordinaire; and most excellent line man Joe refuelling the plane at N47. Altogether a very nice flying day.

We have a plane!!

2009-05-30T23:51:00.005-04:00

We have the charts, we have matching T-shirts, we have most of the paperwork done, and most importantly - we have a plane!! N29SP has been through its overhaul and annual, and is back on the line once again. The mechanic would like us to put 20 hours on it in the next couple weeks, and to do an oil change before we go. Today Mary and I went up in it for the first time in weeks, taking with us Ethel Bailey, Ninety-Nine and champion CFI. It was a beautiful day, and I flew to York and Mary flew us back. Oil burn was minimal, and things look good. As it happens, I'm in the process of changing jobs and have some free time planned, so we aim to take the opportunity to fly as much as possible prior to leaving for Colorado. So far the run up to this year's race has been a very different experience to last year, as we have had much less opportunity for training flights in our race plane than Linda and I did in 2008. But Mary and I both raced in 2008, and have flown together often before, and N29SP is an easy plane to fly well, so we are feeling pretty good at this point.

Setback - engine rebuild

2009-04-19T18:07:00.004-04:00

Mary was home from Florida this week, so we were able to complete the aircraft paperwork and mail it by the April 15th deadline. I have also figured out all the charts we need to get out to Colorado, fly the race, and fly back from Iowa - and when to order them so that they will still be in date by the time of the race. Altogether we need 17 Sectional charts, 17 IFR charts, 13 sets of IFR plates, and 6 Airport/Facilities Directories. You can get an idea of the sheer size of the undertaking if you bear in mind there are only 7 Airport/Facilities Directories for the entire country!

Mary flew N29SP this week, and confirmed what my instructor Bruce Everett and I observed which is that the plane was burning quite a lot of oil. The long and short of it is that two of the four cylinders are off to be rebuilt. Although this is not much fun for owner Adelle, it does mean that with reconditioned cylinders and an annual inspection in May, the plane should be fighting fit for the race! No doubt we'll have to spend quite a lot of time in May flying in the new cylinders, which will be a great opportunity to practice our teamwork and cockpit resource management skills.

Race number 8

2009-03-01T19:09:00.003-05:00

Yesterday Alison got a call from fellow 99 Mary Ellen Morris, who was visiting the Air Race Classic booth at the Women In Aviation conference in Atlanta, Georgia. She was with Terri Carbonell, who was able to tell us that the drawing for the first ten race numbers was complete, and our team drew number 8! I called Mary to let her know. One step closer to the start of the race!

Picture of Team Adelle's Belles!

2009-02-08T14:34:00.002-05:00

This is Mary Wunder (on the left) and Alison Chalker (on the right) standing in front of the Piper Arrow we are planning to race in this year's Air Race Classic! The plane belongs to Adelle Bedrossian, who has very kindly lent it to us - hence the name of our team!

Time to fill out the race forms!

2009-02-08T14:30:00.001-05:00

Its February 8th, and today Mary and I will complete the first milestone towards competing in the 2009 Air Race Classic! We are getting together this afternoon to fill out the first of the race forms. If they are postmarked by February 15th, we will be entered in the drawing for the first 10 race numbers, so we want to get them sent out today. These are only the first of many forms we'll have to complete prior to the big race!

The Air Race Classic is a transcontinental air race for women pilots, and has been raced in one form or another for more than 80 years. Each year the route is different, but it is always a VFR (visual flight rules) race in daytime across approximately 2400 nautical miles, with 8-10 timing stops. Racers have 4 days to complete the course, and scoring is done for the performance of each team relative to its handicap. Understanding and handling your airplane to get maximum performance at full throttle is key, as is reading the weather to find good tailwinds and maintain VFR. We found last year's race to be a very intense and exciting experience, and we can't wait to do it again! This year's race is from Denver, Colorado to Atlantic, Iowa, and circles in a route that includes stops in Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Wisconsin!

To find out more about the 2009 Air Race Classic, as well as the history and results of previous races, check out their website http://www.airraceclassic.org/.

To see last year's blog from Team Cool Beans (Alison Chalker and Linda Evans), see http://evanslle.googlepages.com/.

To see last year's blog from The Dream Team (Mary Wunder and Barbara Strachan), see http://arc20.blogspot.com/.

To find out more about The Ninety-Nines, check out http://www.ninety-nines.org/