Murfreesboro & Daytona Beach

Yes Ethel and I are recovering in Daytona Beach and I am sorry I haven't update the blog sooner.  We got into Daytona Int'l on Friday around 1:30pm and once we did our check in and got everything out of the plane we got to the hotel around 3:30pm.  We had to be at Embry Riddle for the melt down party at 6pm and time just flew. 

My sister Georgia and her friend Kendra joined us and we had a good weekend.  Today we have briefings this morning and I have a two hour board meeting this afternoon.  We will pack and get ready for the banquet this evening. 

Here is a picture of us at Daytona Beach on Saturday.  Boy was it warm. 

No I didn't get a perm.  The humidity is wild here and I just let my hair do it's own thing. 

Hold on to your hats for this photo.  Tom I promise you the plane was not touched.  One of the racers tracked me down at the Melt Down Party on Friday to make sure I got this photo.  It is from Murfreesboro, TN on Thursday evening.  We had gone out to dinner and came back to the hotel and we all crashed.  Early in the morning we had a horrible thunderstorm that hit the area that woke us up.  The rain was hitting the hotel window sideways and I laid there thinking about the plane that is normally in a hanger sitting out on the ramp at the airport. 

This photo was taken by Luke Sparrow from Vanderbilt Life Flight based in Murfreesboro, TN (KMBT).  He sent it to the racer that tracked me down at the Melt Down Party on Friday night.  The plane in the photo is number 7.  Many thanks to Luke for such an awesome photo. 

The lighting struck the maintenance hanger at Murfreesboro and no planes were damaged.  We got out to the plane on Friday morning and it was still wet. 

Wednesday & Thursday...

Wow we have come a long way.  So after the plane was fixed on Tuesday night we took off from Albuquerque on Wednesday morning.  We flew past Midland, TX and landed at Waco, TX later in the afternoon.  We decided to continue on to Arkadelphia, AR and landed there late Wednesday afternoon. 

Our friends from PA...Team 30 (Linda & Alison) also landed at AR later on Wednesday and again we all stayed at the same hotel.  Here is a picture of our planes next to each other at Arkadelphia.

Linda and Alison got into the air before we did and ended for Warrensburg, MO and we followed them.  We got into Warrensburg, MO just as Linda and Alison were ready to leave.  They have a faster plane than us.  We were the last Air Race Classic racer into Warrensburg.  We got fuel and were ready to go within the hour.  We took off and did a fly by to continue at Tuscola, IL and off to Murfreesboro, TN. 

That is where we are now...in TN.  Another long day but only about 4 hours of flying tomorrow to get to Daytona. 

Here is how we started our day in AR. 

Here are some photos of Ethel and myself during our flight today.  It was hot, bumpy and hazy today. 

 

 

When we got into Murfreesboro this was waiting for me.  You might not think that racers  only fly fast planes but they can dig up birthday cakes when they need them.  Thanks to Mary, Juliet, Linda, Alison and Ethel!!!



A Rough Two Days...

We got through all our briefings on Monday and decided to have dinner with our friends from PA.  So the four Eastern PA teams went to an early dinner near our hotel.  I got a call before our dinners arrived that all the pilots needed to come out to the airport.  A microburst had hit the flight line and there were some planes that were pulled from their tie downs.  Here is a traditional microburst depiction.  It is one of the worst things a pilot can face. 

This is what we found when we got to the airport.

 

This is a good shot of how Classic Racer #7 got twisted 45 degrees. 

 

Off in the distance you can see the storm clouds.  

 

 

We didn't have any damage and those who thought they had a problem were checked out by the maintenance team and were cleared to fly.  

 

So we started the race this morning and all was going well until Ethel noted a warning light on the panel and one of the gauges went to zero and the attitude indicator stopped working.  Now these instruments are crucial during an IFR flight or a flight into bad weather or clouds but for fair weather flying they are not necessary.  We continued flying until we got to the first timing line but decided we needed to get maintenance to look at the plane.  We believed that the vacuum pump died. 

 

We were told by the head of maintenance that he wasn't sure he could get the part but would try and if they needed to order it then it would be in Wednesday morning around 10am.  These guys were great.  They got a vacuum pump from Albuquerque Int'l and installed it early Tuesday evening.  We got back to the airport to see them test the plane and run her up to make sure all was ok.    Here is a picture of Classic Racer #7 being tested without her cowl flap on.  

All we need to do is get to the airport Wednesday morning and have the log books signed off on around 8am.  We lucked out that Team 30, our friends Alison and Linda decided to stay overnight at
Albuquerque too so we hopped a ride in their rental car and they carted us to dinner and our hotel. 
Here is a picture of the four of us at dinner. 

 

We will have to take a close look at weather tomorrow but we really need to get to Waco, TX and would like to get further if possible.  

Saturday and Sunday...

We have been busy with BBQs, briefings and banquets.  Here are some of the photos from the last couple of days.

Girl Scout Program....

 

 

Dinner with some of the racers in Prescott on Friday night.  What a very cool town.  

 

 

Eastern PA 99s at the BBQ on Saturday night.

 

 

 

This is such a cool picture of one of the training helicopters taxiing by the race planes.  

This photo is of all the 99s that are racing this year.  

This is a picture of all the racers. 

Friday...Inspections & Handicaps

Friday was a pretty busy day for the Eastern PA teams.  Our 4th team of Alison Chalker and Linda Evans arrived and everyone was trying to get their plane paperwork and plane inspections completed. 

Out of the 51 planes just more than half got inspected yesterday.  Today inspections will be opened from 8am - noon.  Here are some photos of N86XP get inspected...

There were three crews of inspectors who are all volunteers.  It is funny to hear them once they took the cowl (engine cover) off.  I heard the oohhhhs and ahhhs.  Look at the size of that engine.   I had one of the inspectors come over and tell me what a beautiful plane it was and how the Skyhawks were his favorites.  We passed inspections. 

I am off to help with the kids program for three hours and we have our BBQ tonight.  The schedule gets really busy from here. 

Handicaps....

Because there are so many different size and speed airplanes in this competition each gets a handicap and that is how the race is calculated.  Back in May we flew the handicap flight where it was figured out how fast would the plane fly on a calm morning.

Our handicap is 152.372 mph or 132.4 knots.  We just need to fly faster than 152.4 mph.  It will be an interesting race. 

A Day in AZ...

This morning we needed to move the airplane from the south ramp to the north ramp.   The north ramp will be home to all 50+ race airplanes until Tuesday when we take off. 

We also took the time to complete cleaning the belly and put final touches on the wax.  

Here is a picture of Ethel when we were at Double Eagle Airport in Albuquerque, NM on Wednesday morning.  She is standing in front of the ARC poster that has been sent out to all the stops. 

 

This is the view from the dinning room at the hotel.  We are sitting high on a plateau.  

 

 

 

This next photo shows the hotel on the plateau and the price of fuel in AZ.  

 

 

 

Here is a nice photo of Classic Racer #7 tied down and our closest neighbor was the C-130 that is here from Alaska to battle the forest fires.  

 

 

Tomorrow all the activates start.  Credentials and registration begin.  We also will start having the planes inspected. 

We Arrived in AZ....

This was the view from Albuquerque's Double Eagle airport after we landed on Tuesday.  The first photo is from the air.  We saw the plume off in the distance. 

Here is the fire from the airport. 

Here are some photos from Albuquerque to Prescott this morning. 

We got into Prescott around 11:30am local time with winds at 18 mph and gusting to 23 mph.  Normally that wouldn't be too crazy but I can feel the different in flying the plane in these higher altitude airports.  There is a definite difference. 

We parked behind a C130 that came in from Alaska to fight the forest fires.  I will try to get some photos of it tomorrow.  Ethel and I also spent some time cleaning the plane.  We will work on finishing it tomorrow. 

Tuesday's Flights...

Sorry I don't have it in me to get my camera out and upload the couple of photos I took today. We started out from Missori at 10:30am after waiting for some weather to dissipate to the west in Kanas.

We packed up the plane at Marshall Field as a crop plane flew over the corn field just next to the runway.  What an amazing thing to watch.  I only wish I had grabbed my camera or phone to video.  As I turned in the keys to our fabulous crew car I said to the gentleman in the FBO it sure looked like the plane was touching the tassels on the corn.   He laughed and said that they do touch the tassels.  What an art to watch and those pilots are very talented and very crazy.

We were off to Dodge City, KS  As we continued west the winds picked up so that is why we chose airports with multiple runways.  We got out of Dodge and headed to NM.  Here is where the fun begins.  We had wind that slowed us down and we had a couple of hills to climb.  We eventually climbed to 12,000 ft to climb over so of the hills that were absolutely glorious. We had fabulous service by Air Traffic Control.   As we go closer to  Albuquerque we had one last mountain to clear and then we had to get down to 6,800 to land at Double Eagle which is just west and north of Albuquerque Int'l.

I will try to post pictures tomorrow of the forest fires just south of us.  We could see the smoke plume for more than 40nm from the air.

Traveling by small airplane can be a lot of fun and then some times you strike out when it comes to hotel selection.  We choose a hotel that would drive to the airport and pick us up.  I didn't see in their marketing material that I needed to shove a towel in the one inch crack under the door that leads to the outside.   What kind of  critters does NM have?  

We head to Prescott tomorrow morning.  More tomorrow....

Traveling to AZ.....

We got off the ground this morning at 8am and have ended up in Marshall, MO for the evening.  How did we do that?  Good question let me see if I can show you. 

This was suppose to be our first stop for fuel @ Delaware Muni, OH.  Look carefully...the first 800 ft of the runway was under repair and it was unusable.  We decided to stop at Knox County, OH instead.  We saw a couple of guys in a hanger working on a plane down from the FBO but no one was in the FBO so Ethel and I had to pump our own fuel. 

 

 

We were trying to get to Lee's Summit, MO for Monday night be there were storms ahead of us and we had spent more than hours in the plane at one sitting so we choose the nearest airport which was Marshall, MO.  Here are some shots of the only Cessna on the field.  Our neighbors are all crop dusters.   You can also see the storms off in the distance. 

 

 

This was the weather we saw in the distance on radar. The blue dot with the circle is where we landed.   

 

 

 

Marshall Field is owned by the town.  They have a temporary FBO while their new one is being built.  We had fabulous service and they let use their crew car.  I was only disappointed to find that the siren was removed from the car.  The spot light still worked but the driver side seatbelt was not usable.  

 

Sunday Studying...

Ethel and I decided to put our day on the ground to good use.  We pulled out all the charts...yes we still carry paper charts and went through them leg by leg.  Here we are taking a break and laughing about we are planning on navigating the course.

Sunday Departure...

wasn't meant to be.  We have 15kt winds gusting to 30kts.   Right now the winds aloft are at 45kts which means it would have been a huge headwind.  Our three hour trip to our first stop in OH would have take us more than 4 hours (an hour more than expected).  They were also calling for moderate turbulence which wouldn't be fun. 

So Ethel and I will plot and plan this afternoon.  Ron will take us out to dinner and we will depart first thing tomorrow morning. 

Classic Team #7

On a hot Saturday afternoon the race number was applied to N86XP.  The plane is officially now ready to race.  

Thanks to the hard work of  Ron and Tom the numbers look great.   Team #7 is really to leave for AZ. 

The Airplane...

Here is the star of the show....

This photo was taken in the big hanger at Heritage Field (KPTW).  I had just washed the plane but this was before she was waxed. 

 

Here is the plane after it was waxed.  Look at the shine...

 

 

Last but not least....my husband Ron who waxed the plane needs to get special thanks. 

 

 

 

 

He did a fabulous job, spent many hours and I am very thankful for all his help!!!!   

 

SPOT Tracking....

We are frantically trying to get ready to race.  Our plan is to leave either the 12th or 13th depending on weather.  I wanted to give you our SPOT tracking device link.    Just cut and paste this link into your browser.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0qqIDB3qfVQM5BBA9k0GFCaFPdjXI1qBL


This will allow you to track us going from PA to AZ and the coming home from FL.  During the race you will be able to track us via the Air Race Classic website.

Why Sure B.E.T?

We needed to come up with a team name this year and was looking for something different.

Sure B.E.T. stands for....   Barb, Ethel and Tom.

Tom as most of you know is the one and only Tom Smith...the very amazing owner of N86XP who allows two crazy woman race his airplane in a cross country air race.

So this year it is a Sure B.E.T.   We also were given on random draw race number 7.  We are excited about the number since it should give us a little advantage on the first day to get ahead of the pack.

Handicap Flight - May 9th

After it seemed like weeks of rain and low clouds I got our handicap flight in on May 9th at 7am.  I met Mary Wunder at Heritage Field and we prepared all the handicap paperwork and took off into a beautiful spring morning.  Here is what the flight looked like.

Now we wait to see what the plane will be handicapped at this year. 

Welcome Air Race Classic Fans...

Here we go again.  Ethel and I wanted to let you know that we will be racing this year in the 2016 Air Race Classic.  The route will take us from Prescott, AZ to Daytona, FL from June 21st thru June 24th. 

Here is the route...