ARC28

After a couple of hours of suspense, the top ten teams were announced at tonight’s awards banquet – we are very pleased to be the 7th place team.  The idea of “placing” had hardly occurred to me 36 hours ago, then we got the call for re-inspection of the plane - that’s reserved for the top 12 teams.  All of a sudden, I wanted more than to just finish the race, I wanted to be among the top ten.  To be honest, as time wore on, I wanted to be in the top three.  Well, make that the top one.  So, we’re not the first place team, but we are number 7, and that’s pretty amazing.  I’m the colorful one in the picture above, and Camelia is standing behind me.

Lest you think 7th place is cause for disappointment, let me tell you a bit about our competition:
1st place:  this team has raced 12 times before, and won in 2001.
2nd place: one member has raced 24 times, has logged 15,000 hours, holds instructor certificates in Multiengine Land and Sea aircraft, and holds the very first helicopter Instrument Instructor certificate issued by the FAA. 
3rd place: one member is a former WASP who is mentioned in Tom Brokaw’s book, “The Greatest Generation.”  She’s flown this race 31 times, and has over 40,000 hours in the cockpit.  This is the 16th race for her flying partner.
4th place: this team won last year’s race.  One member has flown the Air Race Classic (ARC) 20 times, the other has flown it 6 times.
5th place: each team member has flown the race more than 20 times.
6th place: each team member has flown the race more than 25 times.

Finishing just below us:
8th place: a great team from Embry-Riddle University.
9th place: these team members have flown 10 and 21 times before.
10th:  another very experienced team who won the race in 2004.

The scores were calculated by subtracting each team’s handicap (ours was 140.77) from their average speed over all 8 legs.  Our score was 25.419, which means we averaged 25.419 knots over our handicap.  The score of the team that placed just above us:  25.454.  Pretty darn close.  The 3rd place team scored 26.455, and the 1st place team scored 27.490.

We plan to head back tomorrow as soon as the fog lifts (apparently a normal morning event here).  Thanks so much for sharing in this with us - it’s been one of the most incredible events of my life!

Results won’t be announced until tomorrow night’s award banquet, so we’re waiting, but there are early indications.  We were told before the start that the planes flown by the top 12 teams would be re-inspected within 24 hours of the arrival deadline.  Early this morning Camelia’s cell phone rang, so she turned it off and rolled back over to sleep (remember, we’ve been in 3 time zones in 4 days).  Then her room phone rang, she answered, and was told to be at the airport by 9 am because the plane was to be inspected.  That sounds like good news.  Rumors are flying, but my 5th-hand information says that 13 planes were inspected, possibly because of a tie.    One plane did not finish by the deadline - they were trapped in Saratoga Springs (the next-to-last stop) because of weather.  One or two other teams were disqualified because they flew into weather and wisely filed IFR rather than continuing VFR.  A couple of other teams spent time waiting out weather (with the clock running) at airports just short of Saratoga Springs, and lots of teams, including us, lost time avoiding weather on the last two legs - up, down, around.

Someone asked a couple of days ago if I thought our team would win.  It caught me off guard, because I never considered winning.  It seems like running the Boston Marathon:  running it would be an accomplishment, finishing would be a success, winning would be beyond comprehension.  But now I’m feeling greedy.  First, I wanted to successfully get off the ground in Arkansas and make it to the starting point.  Then I wanted to complete at least one leg.  After the first leg, I wanted to successfully complete the race, and by last night I desperately wanted to get a re-inspection call.  Now, I want to be among the top half-dozen or so.  Winning is still beyond comprehension.  Here’s a picture of team Classic 28 just after landing at Mansfield yesterday.

We’re down and safe after two exhilarating legs starting from Franklin this morning.  It was soupy (that’s a highly technical aviation term) starting about 90 miles from Saratoga Springs.  Sometimes we were able to ride above the clouds, but eventually we had to descend and the ceilings (bottoms of the clouds or, in this case, murk) were pretty low.  The racers use a standard air-to-air frequency to stay in touch when needed (”I’m passing a white high-wing racer on the left”) and there was a lot of chatter as we shared weather conditions (”132 from Saratoga and it’s raining”).  The racers aren’t very forthcoming about best altitudes and strategies for winning, but they are very forthcoming when the issue is safety. 

Every flyby is more exciting than the rest, primarily because the trees seem to get taller coming into each new airport!  This picture shows my view (looking ahead and slightly to the right) just after we passed our checkpoint here at Mansfield and had started climbing out.

For this flyby, we got to experience the trees at the approach end of the runway as well as along the entire length just below our wing as we flew to the right of the runway at 200 mph.  Camelia, in her understated way, said she feared that we were 50 feet high because those trees were “distracting.” 

I couldn’t get pictures of our approach during the lowest point of the flyby (I’m busy with timers, charts, flyby plans, the gps, the radio, and watching for the 5 other planes cruising the area) but took these two pictures after the flyby on our normal approach to land. We’re still above 200 AGL (our flyby altitude) at this point because of the trees.  The main differences in this normal landing and our flyby would be (1) speed (we’re probably doing 80 kt on this approach rather than the 180 kt or more for the flyby) and (2) alignment - we fly the flyby to the right of the runway to avoid running into any traffic departing or landing.  Hopefully these pictures will give you an idea of what we get to see during the flybys.  The fuzziness is probably due to the propeller rather than the murky weather.

The people of Mansfield have lots of festivities planned at the airport this weekend, largely in celebration of the Air Race.  We’re been treated like celebrities, with visitors, cameras, reporters and, of course, food at each stop.  It’s been a real honor and pleasure to meet with these aviation enthusiasts.

Good morning!  It’s 7:45 Eastern time and we’re waiting for fog to lift in Saratoga Springs and storms to move out of our flight path.  We’re also watching weather to the west that is moving our way.

By 5 pm Eastern Time tomorrow we need to be in Mansfield, Massachusetts.  Problem is, we’re still in Franklin, PA, two stops from Mansfield.  Most of us started our day by waiting a couple of hours at the Frankfort (Kentucky) airport while conditions at the next stop (Franklin) gradually improved.  Our team arrived in Franklin about 11 am local time, but by then Saratoga Springs (NY), the next stop, was under an IFR (instrument conditions) advisory due to mist, low visibility, and low ceilings.  Remember, race rules prohibit us from doing a flyby under instrument conditions.  Frankly, it’s enough of a challenge to stay out of each other’s way when we can see clearly!  

A layer of low clouds parked over Saratoga Springs throughout the morning and early afternoon.  All we wanted to see was a trend of improvement over our destination airport so we could start the 2 hour flight.  By 1 pm we were sure conditions in Saratoga Springs would improve within the hour.  By 2 pm, we knew the clouds would lift by 3 pm.  By 3 pm, we started packing the plane so we could leave as soon as the clouds gave the slightest indication of lifting.   By 4 pm, we started to worry.  I should mention that the tailwinds throughout the day were directly in line with the route to Saratoga Springs!  Gee whiz. 

Camelia and I set a decision deadline of 5:30.  That would give us plenty of time to take off, do our timing run to leave Franklin, complete the 2 hour flight, do the timing run in NY, and be wheels down by our deadline of 8:30.  But the clouds never lifted.  By our self-imposed deadline of 5:30, conditions were still IFR so we finally tied down the plane for the night.  A few teams departed for Saratoga Springs throughout the day, with varying degrees of success.

 We plan to be on the way to the airport at 6 am, and hope for clear skies and a great tailwind by 7 am.  Flying time from here to Saratoga Springs and on to Mansfield, the end, is only about 3.5 hours.  Storms here tonight.

Most of us are congregating in Franklin for awhile.  We’re hoping the low ceilings will rise before we take off for the next-to-last stop in Saratoga Springs, NY.  I’m also hoping for something more closely resembling a tailwind -we weren’t impressed with our ground speed on the last leg, but the best tailwind seemed to be on the ground and Camelia refused to taxi all the way to Franklin.   I’ll keep you posted.

After an interesting weather day we and most of the teams flew three legs and are settled for the night in Frankfort, KY.  In honor of my Kentucky-native husband here is a picture of the state capitol taken as we prepared to land. 

We took off from South Dakota this morning, landed twice - in Iowa and Kentucky - and passed over Minnesota, Illinois, and Indiana en route.  Lots of windmills in Iowa.  No more timer incidents thanks to the velcro that now afixes the timer to the plane. 

We departed just before 8 am this morning from Aberdeen and flew the first leg to Mason City, Iowa.  After an hour on the ground watching a weather system in Decator (the next checkpoint), we departed again.  The weather had not moved through Decator when we departed, but it seemed to be moving off so we expected it to be out of our way by the end of the two hour flight.  After a couple hours of anxiously watching the weather radar on the Garmin, we did our Decator flyby in mostly clear conditions and continued straight on to the next checkpoint in Frankfort.  

Our concern really wasn’t due to the clouds or rain - both of us are instrument-rated pilots.  The problem is that this race must be flown in visual (VFR) conditions, and the penalities are high if we do otherwise.  So, if we encounter bad weather then we must circle around waiting for weather to pass (with the time clock running) or deviate around the weather (with the clock running) before coming in for our flyby.  Better to wait it out at the previous checkpoint than to come breaking through the clouds and be penalized or disqualified; it’s all part of the planning.  

The flyby at Frankfort (actually, Capitol City Airport) was fun.  We descended to 200 feet AGL (above ground level), flew just to the right of the runway to pass in front of the official timekeepers at midfield (they clock our endpoint for this leg), then climbed to traffic pattern altitude (about 1800 feet) to leisurely come back and land.  The fun parts were the low altitude and the nice crop of very tall trees just before we got to the runway (I’ll clean the twigs off the landing gear tomorrow).  After we landed two of the Air Race personnel, separately, told us what a great route Camelia had flown - just as published, low and straight.  It takes some skill to fly a plane fast at that altitude on a warm, bumpy summer day.  Camelia is a great pilot and really loves doing those flybys. 

We expect to leave in the morning for Franklin, PA.

We’ve finished our first 2 legs and are in Aberdeen, SD, for the night.  This picture is from about 2 miles out at Aberdeen - the runway is straight ahead. 

It was a tough call deciding whether to stay or proceed - headwinds today or storms tomorrow - but most of the teams opted to stay.  At 6:30 am in Bozeman the weather briefer had expected tailwinds throughout the first two legs; well, he was half right.  The first leg, from Bozeman to Miles City, was smooth with a great tailwind and we averaged several knots higher than expected.  At this point I was thinking that this Air Race business is pretty easy (that was before the first flyby - more on that in a minute).   A few minutes after reaching our planned altitudes, however, Camelia commented that we weren’t going very fast (only 170 mph or so!).  A quick check on the Garmin 496’s XM weather showed why: the wind direction was not what was predicted just 3 hours earlier.  Without spending lots of time climbing, there just didn’t seem to be a better altitude, so we stayed put and tried to think light.  The route out of Aberdeen to Mason City (3rd leg) would turn us even more into the wind, so we decided to set down for the night. 

Some of the teams proceeded to Mason City, preferring to face a headwind today rather than the chance of being grounded due to weather tomorrow.  They might be right.  Remember though, the first team to the end isn’t necessarily the winner, and the fastest plane isn’t necessarily the winner.  The goal of each team is to beat its own handicapped speed (about 142 kts for the Cessna 182RG), and the team that averages the highest above its own handicap (Average Speed - Handicap = Score) is the winner. 

The ARC staff and Bozeman tower did a great job getting us off the ground this morning.  Our plane, Classic 28, was near the end of the line, but we lifted off just after 9 am local time.  Looks like we’re 4th in line to take off in this picture.

Here, we’ve just departed from Bozeman and are heading to the pass. 

Take off and flying through Bozeman Pass was a thrill, but we actually had time during that first 1.5 hour leg to talk, snack, and plan for the first flyby at Miles City and  continuation to the 2nd checkpoint.   One of my duties is to time each leg to the second so we can compare our time to that reported by the official scorekeepers.  The flyby happens really, really fast, it was my first, and I was totally prepared.  That was, until I dropped the timer about 2 miles before the end of the runway where we were to do our flyby run.  Two points here: (1) two miles at 170 kts doesn’t leave much time to find anything, and (2) once something is dropped in a small plane it’s almost always lost until the next stop.  Camelia didn’t feel inclined to help me find the timer since she was trying to keep a low, fast plane headed in the right direction and above ground.  Well, it was pretty exciting for awhile, but fortunately the official scorekeepers were stationed at the far end of the runway, which gave me a little extra time to throw charts and granola bars over my shoulder and finally retrieve the timer.  The second flyby went much better.