We're Home

We are finally home. Today proved to be our most trying day. We got to Monroe Air Center around 7am and the airport was completed socked in. While Marty had the 180 fueled, Kay started checking with Flight Service for weather. The entire route from Monroe to Heritage was IFR with extremely low ceilings, some as low as 900 ft AGL. We continued to wait it out and after lots of talking with Flight Service and among ourselves, decided to try it around 12:30pm. We got as far at Lufkin, TX before it was raining so hard that we could not see out of the airplane. We landed and checked weather. It appeared that the weather ceiling was going to get better as we continued, so shortly we were back in the airplane and continuing on to Heritage. The ceilings remained pretty good until we started to get close to Seguin. We finally landed at Heritage with it raining and the grass strip pretty muddy. We called one of our fellow pilots who had hangar space and quickly had Charley into a hangar until the weather clears up.

We had more fun competing in the air race than we ever imagined. In the 17 days on our adventure, we landed at 16 different airports, crossed the Mississippi River 4 times, made new friends with 111 women pilots, and had dinner or lunch with 22 friends from former lives. We did not encounter any major maintenance problems (thanks Tom). Although we are glad to be back home, we will always remember the year that we competed in the 34th Air Race Classic. We are both pretty proud of ourselves. We learned a lot about airplane performance, managing winds, and flybys. All eight of the legs were 2-3 hours hours of crosscountry flying, followed by 20 minutes of excitement. All the flybys were made from wings level one mile out, at either 200 or 300ft AGL. There were always other air racers in the vicinity doing their flybys, which made it even more exciting. We accomplished all three of our goals: We didn't get disqualified, we didn't finish last, and we had FUN.

Our thanks to everyone who provided us with support during our adventure. We enjoyed reading all the e-mails and comments on the blog that we received. We plan on making a copy of our blog to add to our collection of air race memorabilia.

Topping off Fuel Tanks - $160.00
Room for the Nite - $100.00
Competing in the Women's Air Race Classic - PRICELESS

Almost Home

Our day started with low ceilings at Virginia Highlands Airport and we didn't get out until 10:15am. After talking to Flight Service, we altered our flight plan to go from Virginia Highlands Airport to Jackson, TN, due to weather. Before we got to Jackson, we diverted to West Memphis. Shortly thereafter, West Memphis got hit by thunderstorms and we diverted again to Indianola, MS. Not our smartest move. Found out after landing that Indianola gets very little transient traffic and is mostly ag. We fueled up the tanks quickly and took off for Monroe, LA. In Monroe we finally had a chance to put some food in our stomachs and after looking at the weather again, we decided to overnight in Monroe. The plan is to get out early in the morning and finish up our final 3 hours to home. Maintenance OK.

On our way home

We were up at 6am and on our way to FDK by 7. We loaded Charley and moved her around to the maintenance hangar for her oil change. While waiting, we checked and rechecked the weather. Around 11am, the oil change was finished, her fuel tanks were full and we decided to head for Tri Cities (Bristol, TN) before the forecasted storms blew in. Abour 60 miles outside Bristol Marty noticed lots of thunderstorms on top of Bristol and we decided it was time to set Charley down. Kay pulled our her Blackberry and started searching the Airport Facility Directory for nearby airports before we hit weather. We ended up in Abington, VA, about 30 miles outside Bristol. Couldn't have found a nicer place to sit out the weather. The Operations Manager at Abington took us to a motel and gave us his phone number so that he could pick us up tomorrow morning to go back to the airport. We walked across the street to a small Italian restaurant and got something to eat. As we sit in our motel room with full "tummies" we are watching it rain and thunder outside. Tomorrow's forecast is for sunny weather and we hope to get almost all the way home tomorrow. We have been gone for two weeks now, and both of us are anxious to get back. We will keep everyone posted as to our progress. Maintenance OK.

Final Night

Today was the climax of the 34th Air Race Classic. We had the banquet tonight at Dutch's Daughter Restaurant in Frederick, MD. While we didn't win the race, we were both very happy with our air race standing. We finished 36 out of 51 airplanes in the race. We exceeded our handicap speed in most of the legs and exceed all our expectations. We made some lastings friendships and will always have many fond memories of our first air race. Tomorrow we have an oil change scheduled early and then on our way back to Texas. We want to thank everyone who has supported us in this adventure and hope all of you have enjoyed reading our blog. We will let everyone know when we get home.

The Best Day

We had the best day. First Marty's friend, Bonnie, drove up to see us from Kent Island, MD and brought us two coffee cups with airplanes on them and a card that sang "Celebration" to us. We had lunch with her and Marty spoke to the Girl Scouts about her barnstorming days. Then we came back to the hotel and signed our score sheets. We still don't know where we placed, but we did end up on the positive and know that we are not in last place or were disqualified. At 4pm we were invited to a premiere viewing of a new documentary of the 1929 Women's Air Derby (Powder Puff Derby). A friend of Marty's invited us to sit in special reserved seats with two WASPs, Gail Reed and Elaine Harmon. They were both awesome ladies and the documentary was great. From there we went to a VIP Reception where we got to meet with the Curator of the Air and Space Museum who invited Marty and I to a special tour of the new Air and Space Museum at Dulles on Monday afternoon. If all works out with the special tour, we will leave for home on Tuesday instead of Monday after the oil change on Charley. Tomorrow we have lots of activities for the first time air racers and the banquet in the evening where we will learn who won the race and our placement. We will keep everyone posted.

We Finished

We left Parkersburg, WV around 9:15am enroute to Frederick, MD. Had some mountain obscurations flying from WV to MD. Very hazy out and lots of mountains to climb over. A lot different from the flat lands of TX. Got into Frederick around 10:40 with a flourish. We flew the timing line with all the power Charley had, swung her around for a downwind, and on to base and final for Runway 23. We both let out a very loud scream when we touchdown. WE DID IT. We will forever after be known as Classic Air Racers and we have joined an elite group of women who have come before us. We are anxious to get our final score on Sunday evening at the banquet and learn who the winners are. We have a Meltdown Party tonight, so may not be able to blog tomorrow because we will be recovering. We will keep everyone posted as to our final score and placement. Maintenance Still OK. Thanks Tom.

Day 3

We began day 3 of the air race in Elkhart, IN. That proved to be our toughest airport. On our fly-by into Elkhart, the stop watch flew across the cockpit, so we were unable to determine our unofficial ground speed from Carbondale to Elkhart. We spent the night in Elkhart with storms approaching from Chicago with 80 mph winds. We tied Charley down good and she weathered the storm. Were out at the airport by 8am today. The ceilings were low in both Elkhart and Parkersburg, WV, our 7th stop. We decided to wait out the weather and finally departed Elkhart at around 2pm with assurances from the weather briefer that we would have a good tailwind if we left right away. Had a pretty good ground speed into Parkersburg that the weather briefer promised us. We had our second "incident" as we were flying the timing line to depart Elkhart. Just as Marty was on the timing line at 300' AGL, her window came open. She had the airplane at full throttle when it flew open. I screamed at her to keep flying the airplane, and reached around her and closed the window just as we flew over the timing line. We have decided that between the stop watch and the window, we didn't have good luck in Elkhart and would not be stopping there ever again. We got into Parkersburg at around 5:30pm and decided to call it a day. We want to make a grand entrance into Frederick, MD tomorrow. There is supposed to be fog in Parkersburg until around 9am so we are planning to depart around 10. We only have 188nm left to go. Our ground speeds have been pretty good and we only have two legs where our groundspeed was less than our handicap speed. We don't really expect to win the race as first time racers, but we really want to put on a good show. Wish us luck on our last leg tomorrow. Maintenance OK.