Timing Run

Can you imagine that our babybirds are one step ahead of us? Classis 28 - Ethel Bailey and Barbara Zeigler have completed their timing run and have their handicap - not that they disclosed what that was - but they have less to worry about now than Alison and I do. We would have tried to complete ours today also except that the airplane is still in annual. It is now less than 22 days, 14 hours and 22 minutes until the start of the race - we are really excited.!!!

Pennies a Pound

The annual Pennies a Pound event to raise funds for scholarships for the Eastern PA Chapter was scheduled for May 15 and 16 at Brandywine airport. May 15 dawned sunny but quite windy (gusting over 25 kt from the North), so we cancelled for that day. But Sunday was beautiful, and we had lots of planes ready to go at noon, including Mary in her Mooney and Alison in her Cherokee, not forgetting Bill Knepshield who was flying the race plane! There were lots of 99s and friends there as ground crew as well, including Nicole Graham, Linda Evans, MaryEllen Morris, Kate Macario, Adelle Bedrossian, Gayl Henze and many others. We had a lovely day and flew well over 200 passengers. Unfortunately there are no pictures of Mary below because she was so busy flying (7 flights). Alison only did 4 or 5, which is why she had time for photos. 

Alison with Bill and Herb

Alison with Gene

Plotting the Route

Pennies a pound was canceled on Saturday, so Alison and I used our new found free time to plot most of our race route. We only need a current Kansas City chart to have the whole race route

plotted.

Poker run!

This weekend Mary and I flew N29SP together, for the first time since the 2009 race, in a poker run to benefit the North Jersey Chapter of the 99s. A poker run is when you fly to five different airports in any order (in this case Doylestown PA DYL, Sky Manor NJ N40, Trenton-Robbinsville NJ N87, Greenwood Lake NJ 4N1 in any order, ending up at the terminus Blairstown NJ 1N7) and pick up a playing card at each one. Depending on the hand of cards you have at the end, you can win one of many prizes. It was a hot beautiful day, clear blue skies, no winds, and lots and lots of small plane traffic given that this was the first nice weekend of the year. Needless to say Mary and I didn't get a good hand or win anything - but flying to so many airports in one day was a great way for us to get proficient in the plane again. By the end of the morning, it had all come back to us!

Alison in front of the cockpit of the Lockheed Constellation at Greenwood Lake NJ

Mary checking the oil

Alison and Mary - team Adelle's Belles

Greenwood Lake from the air (above)

Mary and a North Jersey 99s volunteer (below)