Vectors Wild 2012: May 2012

Above is the race route - all the way from Arizona to Ohio! yeehah

To recap for anyone not familiar, the Air Race Classic is a transcontinental air race for teams of two women pilots, and has been raced in one form or another for more than 80 years. The race is a speed race requiring that each team fly their airplane in max power configuration, and teams are scored on their performance relative to their individual handicap. Each year the route is different, but it is always a VFR (visual flight rules) race in daytime across approximately 2400 nautical miles, that must be completed in 4 days. To find out more about the 2012 Air Race Classic, as well as the history and results of previous races, check out their website www.airraceclassic.org. There are 55 airplanes registered this year, including many old friends, and three teams from our own local group of Ninety-Nines! This is Alison's fifth race and Linda's third, and last year this team placed 9th and qualified for a top ten medal! We'd like to beat that this year.... Only a couple weeks to go, and we are in final preparations. It's not just a case of showing up in Arizona the Saturday before the race - there is soooo much to do. So far we have... Ordered the race number decals, washed and waxed the plane, completed the annual inspection, done an online safety course, obtained an insurance certificate, registered at the start and terminus, booked the start and terminus hotels and rental cars, bought a case of oil and some cleaning kit, started the blog, ordered all the charts, marked out the race route on the 9 or so sectional charts that it covers, planned the route out to the start in Arizona (six legs of about 3 hours each), registered for a handicap run and a prerace inspection... Things we still have to do before we leave mid month are complete the handicap run, put on the numbers, update the GPSs and the iPads, pack... I expect we'll get it all done somehow.

With the plane's annual inspection done and everything shipshape, the annual Pennies-a-Pound fundraiser for the Eastern PA Ninety-Nines scholarship fund came around in May. At this event, held at Heritage field in Limerick, we and about ten other pilots spend two days taking members of the public for airplane rides, supported by an able ground crew from the EPA Chapter who marshal the planes, weigh the passengers, take the money, triage the line and load the planes appropriately (kudos Deb Penrod - awesome job!!), shepherd the passengers and make sure they're loaded up and strapped in, write out flight certificates, and generally help with everything ground-based. The first day began with Alison discovering during preflight at Doylestown that the cowl left cowl flap hinge pin had mysteriously snapped, but Mary Wunder saved the day by flying our fabulous mechanic Kent Heller over from Heritage to fix it, after which Alison flew him back there and started the rides. Our wonderful Chapter Chair and fellow racer Barbara Zeigler kept us all in order and everything running smoothly, and ran a really great event. The weather was the best we've had for years, with two wonderful sunny days, so we were able to fly almost 400 people over the two days and raise enough to fund three local aviation scholarships this year, which is exceptional and a triumph for all involved. Linda and Alison flew missions all day and learned some valuable tips about our fuel-injected Lycoming engine, which is really tricky to hot start. But we have a new starter motor and battery as of last year, and it will start right up even when the top of the cowling is too hot to touch, given 75% throttle, mixture full lean, and no prime, with a little luck and gut feeling thrown in.

A couple weeks later, Brian and Alison had a lovely Memorial day weekend trip to Maine in the race plane. With a few day trips from home in PA thrown in, it came to almost 20 hours of flying between the two of us. As usual, we had a few glitches to iron out, but no major ones this time... The rubber tread fell off the passenger side step, in flight I assume as we can't find it; the alt fld breaker tripped for the second time this year for unknown reasons; and finally we discovered that the autopilot doesn't like to fly in approach configuration. But these are small potatoes. On our trip we stayed in Bar Harbor, then spent a day flying around northern Maine up to Mt Katahdin which still had snow on it, ending up in Rockland where we visited the immaculate Owls Head Transportation Museum and saw the Wyeth collection in the art gallery in town, not to mention eating some very fine meals and sampling the local wine and beer on the way. The weather was spectacular, and flying over the Maine coast with its thousands of little tree-covered islands and sparkling ocean was just beautiful.

Little clouds over PA