Sunday dawned gorgeous and hot without a breath of wind, so handicap pilot Mary Wunder flew her Mooney over to Harrisburg to complete the handicap flight for Carolyn Van Newkirk, then met Alison at Doylestown later in the morning to do the same for Vectors Wild. The plane had been emptied of all except POH listed items, and filled to overflowing with fuel, per the regulations. We took off and climbed to a density altitude of 6000 feet, shut the cowl flaps and all the drag-producing air vents, cranked it up to max power, then flew a four leg course on headings due E, N, W and S while Mary took timed groundspeed readings and the "black box" electronic timer monitored everything. Philadelphia Approach was very accommodating as our route took us into their Class B airspace for a while, and did not seem puzzled by Alison's explanation of what we were doing! The data will be sent back to race central and used to calculate our individual handicap speed in knots - this is a very important number, since its the one that we have to beat.
Back on the ground at Doylestown, Alison let Mary out without shutting down the engine, then took off again for Pottstown to pick up (hopefully) the very last form from our mechanic Kent. He saw us coming, and ran the form over so we didn't have to shut down there either, then Alison flew our baby home. Our next flight will be on Thursday morning (weather permitting) - the first of six legs to the start in Arizona!
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