Air Race Classic 2018

June 22, 2018 Race Complete      VTA - PEO      PEO - IZG We landed in Fryeburg, Maine! Before this we needed to get to Penn Yan.  Mary, Purdue Air Race Captain 2017, met us before we left VTA. We left IFR for Penn Yan, NY. When we hit Pennsylvania, the low cloud ceilings were starting to clear. It was beautiful as we cut the corner of Pennsylvania into upstate New York. We passed over the Finger lakes and they were in beautiful valleys.  Soon we were landing in Penn Yan to stop for fuel, a bite to eat, and clean our plane.  We left in the afternoon, in hopes of strategic planning to pay out. We did our fly-by and were full throttle to Maine.  Can I say WOW! The terrain was beautiful, to see the Appalachian Mountains from the air was incredibly amazing.  We did our fly-by to end our race. When we landed, there were so many smiling volunteers as well as family!  After we fueled and parked the plane, we handed the keys

June 21, 2018 Cloud Cruising  We woke up in GBG, IL and the cloud ceilings were still too low for the race as well as storms en route to the next stop.  Our friends PPI awaiting IFR release at GBG All the racers were waiting in the hangar when we received the email that the racers were to reposition to Penn Yan, NY (PEO) and we would start the race timing there for the last leg of the race. Alyssa and I filed our IFR flight plan and headed out. There was a wait for IFR release on the ground in GBG due to all of us wanting to get out, though soon we were climbing through the clouds.  We chose to stop at two race points before heading to PEO.  We flew to Auburn, IN (GWB) and had to hold on an approach (not a problem as we had more than enough fuel) for our friends from Lewis as they landed and then we were cleared on the approach. We found Lara, the ARC president, handing us the promised root beer floats and a cold towel, even though it was raining. We had a good ch

June 20, 2018 Trouble Ahead      BIE - GBG We had a late morning in Nebraska. Everyone was waiting for ceilings to lift. Race Central made the decision to bypass the FBL (Faribault, MN) leg, have everyone ferry themselves to GBG (Galesburg, IL) and continue the race once there.  We were saddened that we wouldn't be making it to Minnesota, as the FBOs do lots of planning to host the event leg. Sometime in the future I will have to visit.  This decision by Race Cental started an adventure. Alyssa and I filed our IFR flight plan, preflighted, fueled up, and were on our way. We made it about 160 nautical miles outside of GBG when we decided to divert due to the thunderstorms connecting making a line of thunderstorms. We ended up diverting from our original "alternate" airport due to winds outside of comfort and aircraft limits. We backtracked to SDA (Shenandoah, IA) where we picked up more fuel (for ourselves and the plane) and to wait on weather. W

June 19, 2018 Race Day      SWW - AVK      AVK   - BIE The morning started off nice and early at 0530. All the racers met for a final 30 minute meeting to receive our plane keys and perform roll call.  "Al-ber" the Uber of SWW I forgot to mention this earlier in the blog posts, but everyone in Sweetwater was so helpful and amazing especially with the transportation. In the middle of this photo is the man who gave us the experience of "Al-ber" because "Sweetwater doesn't have Uber". Imagine the nicest gentleman saying that in a Texan accent. They were an amazing help with our stay in Sweetwater.  Our friend from Jacksonville Uni helping us out Back to departing. We had to wait for clouds to lift, while doing this everyone was preflighting and working on getting the stakes out of the ground. We had some trouble with one of our stakes and Jacksonville University came to give us a hand. A volunteer was finally able to pull it out of t

June 17, 2018 Briefings The day was scheduled for racer briefings from 0800 through 1500. These included a collegiate brief, an all racer brief, specifics for landing at the stops, scoring breakdown, and equipment technology explanations. Lunchtime involved the watching of the documentary "Mercury 13" as well as a visit from Gene Nora Jessen who was one of the ladies who underwent all the physical testing to be a woman who would be sent to space. Sadly the program was defunded and these ladies did not make it into space due to societal beliefs.  It was an honor to hear her speak and we are grateful to her for gifting all the racing ladies a signed copy of her book "Sky Girls" as well as starting the break in the glass ceiling for women astronauts. Alyssa and I needed to clean the plane because we were unable to do so the day before due to our maintenance situation. So we made sure to have an Official supervise our cleaning to make sure we did not get any