Nancy and I finished the 2015 Air Race Classic yesterday at 3:05 pm with almost 2 hours to spare. We discovererd a dead battery yesterday morning when we arrived at the KUCY airport, in Union City, TN, to fly our final two legs of the race. Fortunately the wonderful crew at KUCY were able to recharge my battery in a few hours. A huge thank you to Jo Ann Speer, the Airport Manager, William Waggoner, the owner of WillAero, LLC, and Glenn Belson, a retired Navy Pilot and mechanic. I will definitely be stopping at KUCY on my future cross country flights from DE to TX. Also want to thank John Armstrong and Dave Passmore of Lifestyle Aviation and Brad Reamer of Advanced Aircraft for early morning phone call support.
6 hours later we were in the air and were able to do a fly-by to continue at Gadsden, AL, KGAD, and then direct to the terminus at Fairhope, AL, KCQF.
Since we were the last team to leave KUCY and the last team to cross the finish line at KCQF, Nancy and are now famous. We had large crowds at both airports waving as we flew the timing lines. Also all the race teams at the finish where rooting for us as they followed our progress along the final two legs and hoping we would finish in time.
We we will not know our actual standings until later this weekend, but Nancy and I are very pleased with our race performance, the precision of the fly-bys, and the decisions we made during the last four days.
Thanks to to all the wonderful people we met along the way to support the racers and the All Women's Air Race Classic.
And a huge Thank You to our sponsors:
John Armstong and Lifestyle Aviation
Barbara and Dana Wright
Jane and Marion Waggoner
Mary Heinsohn
Jan Churchill
Ginny Batzel
Ron Mehan
We waited out the severe thunderstorms between Lawrenceville, IL and Kirksville, MO this morning. We finally departed about 11:15am CDT and easily completed legs 6 & 7. We will get up early in the morning and hope the weather lets us fly the final two legs, from Union City, TN to Gadsden, AL, then to the terminus in Fairhope, AL.
We are still having fun and seem to be doing well in the race. With the handicap system, it is impossible to know how we are doing versus the other racers. We are making safe decisions and having fun. So far I think we have flown all fly-bys very well. We had winds gusting to 28 knots today at the Kirksville, MO, fly-by. Quite a challenge holding altitude at 200'AGL flying at 170 kts with winds gusting to 28kts.
More photos will be posted tomorrow. I am using all available internet bandwidth tonight to update the Garmin Data Cards for my flight avionics in my plane. The new cycle starts tomorrow. So far it has taken almost two hours and I still have one more card to go.
To the finish in the morning...
We got to the airport in Lawrenceville, IL at 6:00am this morning and see the following radar.
The good news is that we still have plenty of time to get to the terminus by 5:00pm on Thursday. Here is our progress for Day 1 and Day 2
We are halfway through the race and have completed the first 5 out of 9 legs. We are currently in Lawrenceville, IL. We flew 3 legs on Day 1 and 2 legs on Day 2. We are doing well, but are tired. While we have not had terrible weather, we have had some challenges along the way.
The first leg we experienced some light rain. The second leg was some marginal VFR, meaning the clouds were within 3000' AGL (above the ground). The third leg weather was fine. The biggest challenges on Day 1 were the fly-bys across the timing lines. We do a fly-by at 150 kts at 200' AGL to start and stop our time for each leg. The patterns were very congested with planes arriving, landing and departing. We even had to do a dual fly-by, as we were overtaking a slower plane at the timing line.
Day 2 we encountered Marginal VFR along most of the route, but we were able to safely fly across the flat lands of Indiana, Michigan and Illinois and stay below the scattered layer of clouds. We were unable to fly leg 6 this afternoon due to a large thunderstorm approaching Kirksville, MO. We decided to not take the risk and settled for a nice dinner.
Hope you are enjoying following us. We are having a lot of fun interacting with the other race teams. The camaraderie of fellow women pilots cannot be beat. Here are a few pictures taken at the start and along the race route.
At the Race Start
Leg 1 Light Rain Showers
Virginia Mountains
Distant Rain Showers
West Virginia Windmills
Indiana Farmland
We spent most of the day in race briefing meetings. The morning focused on general race details, judging and scoring. The afternoon focused on the use of the technology that we will have in each plane.
We will be using the Bad Elf Pro GPS tracking device as the primary timing device for the race. Each team will need to download the data from each leg flown and email the track log every night and turn in the device at the end of the race. In addition, there will also be timing officials on the ground recording time as we cross the timing lines at the beginning and end of each race leg.
We will also be carrying a SPOT GPS tracker. You can track our real time position during the race at http://trackleaders.com/arc15. We are Team 28.
Foreflight is another important application for iPads that we will be using for flight and weather planning and enroute charts and airport diagrams. Foreflight is a sponsor of the Air Race Classic this year and is offering free subscriptions to all racers for the race. I have been using ForeFlight as my most essential flight application for 5 years, so I am very familiar with ForeFlight.
We will finish the day with a Take Off Banquet tonight. Tomorrow is filled with more briefings. The race begins early Monday morning.
Here is a screen shot of the map of the entire race course from ForeFlight.
"10 Carat", my Diamond Star DA40, passed the airplane inspection this morning with flying colors. A team of student A&P mechanics and their instructor from Seattle, WA, were inspecting all 50+ planes in the race. They were awed by the beauty and mechanical integrity of the Diamond Star DA40. In fact, my plane was the first to pass inspection with no issues noted on the inspection report. The inspection also included marking all the engine adjustment points, like the magnetos and governor. If we win or finish in the top 10, we will have a post race inspection to make sure that no adjustments were made to improve performance during the race.
10 Carat on Tiedown
Testing the Radios
Inspecting the Pilot's Operating Handbook
Removing the Cowling
Lifting the Cowling
Engine Inspection
Marking the Mags
Nancy and I arrived safely at Stafford Regional Airport (KRMN) in Fredericksburg, VA this afternoon. We had a great send-off from our Delaware 99s chapter at my hangar. Then the local ABC Channel 6 News showed up to interview us and film our departure. Rumor has it that we made the 6:00pm news coverage on TV. Guess Nancy and I got our 15 seconds of fame.
The weather was slowly improving as we departed the Wilmington Airport (KILG). We had 500' ceilings and flew most of the flight in IMC conditions, which stands for Instrument Meteorological Conditions, meaning we flew in the clouds. We were vectored around the north and west side of Washington, DC and over Dulles Airport.
Enroute at 8000'
Dulles Airport
We passed our Credentials Registration, then waited for a couple of hours for the Airplane Logbook inspection. The physical airplane inspection will be in the morning. Hopefully all will go well tomorrow.
We ended the evening having dinner with about 15 fellow racers. It was great to reconnect with friends from the 2012 race and meet some new first time racers. We had women from California, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina and even The Netherlands at our table.
John Armstrong and Lifestyle Aviation are a key sponsor for Team 28 this year. I first met John Armstrong in early 2010 when he visited the Wilmington Airport giving demo rides in a Diamond Star DA40. The demo flight sold me on the safety and flight characteristics of the DA40. I ended up working with John to purchase my Diamond Star DA40 in Dec 2011.
Check out the Lifestyle Aviation website and the great article that John and Caroline Coltrane prepared to our team.
PRESS RELEASE 6-15-2015
Team 28, comprised of Cynthia Lee of Avondale, PA, and Nancy Rohr of Bear, DE, will be flying a Diamond Star DA40 in the 39th Annual Air Race Classic (ARC), all-women air race, which will take place June 22-25, 2015. This year’s 2529 statute mile race will begin in Fredericksburg, VA, with stops in Hickory, NC, Connellsville, PA, Jeffersonville, IN, Kalamazoo, MI, Lawrenceville, IL, Kirksville, MO, Union City, TN, and Gadsden, AL with the terminus in Fairhope, AL.
The first race took place in 1929, originally called the Women’s Air Derby, and included a field of 20 women pilots that included Amelia Earhart and was won by Louise Thaden. That race flew from Santa Monica, CA. to the Cleveland Air Races in OH. The All Women’s Transcontinental Air Race (Power Puff Derby) was formed in 1948 and ran until 1977 when the ARC ran its first race with a 2400 mile race from Santa Rosa, California to Toledo, Ohio, continuing the competition as the longest running air race in the USA.
Cynthia Lee is a 700-hour instrument rated private pilot and is retired from 37 years of operations and engineering management with DuPont and Axalta, and is now an avid pilot and photographer.
Nancy Rohr is a 4,000-hour Airline Transport Pilot and began her flying career in 1985, flew for a Fortune 500 company before advancing into aviation management for a major professional pilot training organization.
Cynthia and Nancy will depart on Thursday, June 18, 2015 from New Castle County Airport for Fredericksburg, Virginia to enter their second ARC, having previously flown in the contest in 2012.
The ARC is an annual VFR (good weather) cross-country event flown by airplanes with engines providing at least 100 horsepower (HP) but not more than 600 HP in either a competition or a non-competition class. Competition Class includes Stock and modified Stock, normally aspirated, piston powered airplanes, rated for continuous operation at maximum engine speed. Non-Competition Class includes airplanes not qualifying in Competition Class per ARC Rules, and those teams are not racing, but flying the event solely for education and experience. Both classes follow the same rules and enjoy similar flying adventures over the 2529 mile course.
All entered airplanes are flown for handicap speed before the start. Teams then race their handicap speed, trying to best their own top speed from timing line to timing line. Once the first plane launches the teams have four days to fly all nine race legs and must arrive and cross the Terminus finish line by 5 PM. Thorough knowledge of the rules and route are critical to successful completion of the race.
Two current licensed women pilots comprise a team and passengers are permitted provided they are women pilots or student pilots. This year 53 teams are entered in the race with pilots ranging in age from 18 to 88 years and who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Included are 13 teams representing colleges who will vie for the perpetual trophy for the top college team as well as overall placement.
Louise Thaden who flew in the very first women’s air race in 1929 was quoted as saying “…added skills are developed; self-confidence is increased; and enduring friendships are made.” The Air Race Classic remains a venue for competitive flying with over 1500 teams and 100,000 statute miles flown.
To follow race Team 28 go to Cynthia’s blog at http://tejas.zenfolio.com/blog or the official Air Race Classic website at www.airraceclassic.org.; then go to Follow ARC as the Racers fly to the Finish.
I put the final touches on "10 Carat" today. I applied the team 28 Race Numbers to the tail. Picked the hottest day of the year (95F) to do this.
Also completed all the required documents and printed all the rules, procedures and fly by instructions for the race. Nancy and are planning to depart Wilmington (KILG) on Thursday, June 18th enroute to Stafford Regional Airport (KRMN) in Virginia. It is great that the race start is only a short 1hr 20min flight from Wilmington, DE.
The race starts on Monday, June 22nd and ends Thursday, June 25th, at Sonny Callahan Airport (KCQF) in Fairhope, Alabama.
You can track our progress by following this blog and the official Air Race Classic website>> http://airraceclassic.org/2015race
I successfully completed the official Handicap Flight last week for the upcoming Air Race Classic. The Handicap Flight determines the handicap speed that I will fly against for the race. A box pattern is flown at 6000' Density Altitude and a Bad Elf Pro GPS is used to track the ground speed. Also Mary Wunder, the handicap pilot, recorded the ground speed 12 times manually every 20 seconds for each leg. It is critical that the winds are light and the ground speed must be within +/- 2 knots on each leg, in order for the Handicap Flight to be valid. The flight was approved but I will not know my official handicap speed until a few days before the race. Attached is the actual track log of the flight. Even though the winds were relatively light, you can see that the box pattern is a little skewed by the winds at 6000'.
Many thanks to Nancy Rohr, Stan Brassington, Barbara Wright, Dana Wright and Ginny Batzel. Today we had fun washing and waxing my DiamondStar DA40, affectionately known as 10 Carat. The plane is now ready to fly the Handicap Flight later this month to determine the maximum speed that will be used in the upcoming Air Race Classic. Check out the photos.
Team "10 Carat" has received donations from some very gracious new sponsors for the upcoming Air Race Classic. Jane Waggoner, Mary Heinsohn and Jan Churchill are three new sponsors from the Delaware 99s Chapter. Also Ron Mehan, a retired Air Force Colonel and active Flight Safety instructor, has also made a donation and is a new sponsor of our team. Nancy and I are overwhelmed with the generosity and support of our friends and colleagues in the aviation community. Thanks!!!
We have been assigned race number 28 for the upcoming Air Race Classic on June 22-25, 2015. You can find more details about the race and follow our progress on http://airraceclassic.org/2015race.asp
The Delaware Photographic Society is presenting the Wilmington International Exhibition of Photography. Stop by Arsht Hall on the Wilmington Campus of the University of Delaware on Sunday, Feb 22nd and Mar 1st, to see some world class photography exhibited.
Ginny Batzel, a member of the 99s Delaware Chapter, has graciously donated to become Team 10 Carat's second sponsor for the 2015 Air Race Classic. A huge thank you to Ginny!
John Armstrong and Lifestyle Aviation have agreed to sponsor team 10 Carat in the 2015 Air Race Classic. I purchased my DiamondStar DA40 from John Armstrong in December 2011. John has become a good friend and I really appreciate his support over the last few years. Check out his web site http://lifestyleaviation.com
Nancy Rohr and I began the year by registering for the 2015 Air Race Classic. This will be our second cross country race for women pilots. Our first was in 2012. This year's race will be held June 22-25, 2015. The race will start at Fredericksburg, VA (KRMN) and end at Fairhope, AL (KCQF) and include 9 legs over 4 days. We have already started our race preparations and the excitement is building.
Here is a link to the ARC http://airraceclassic.org