We waited at Carbondale a couple hours, then left around 3pm for the flight to Elkhart Indiana. The system of severe thunderstorms had moved away to the East, and there was plenty of time before the next one moved in. Alison flew this leg, completing the flyby to continue at Carbondale then departing to the northeast. We found excellent tailwinds around 3000 feet, and continued in the haze. The photo shows us passing Classic 3 somewhere near Purdue. (How do we know who all these planes are? We can call out position reports and talk to each other on a common air race traffic frequency, 122.75).
The flight got exciting as we approached Elkhart. There was quite a lot of wind even at lower levels due to the departing storm system, plus a lot of turbulence from the heat (it was 100 degrees on the ground at Carbondale). So once we descended to a low altitude, we got thrown around so much that it was a bit like riding a temperamental horse. Added to that, the field at Elkhart is tower controlled, and the one controller had his hands full with a large group of women pilots who were all arriving in a wave. Added to that, the southwesterly winds meant that the controller had decided to land traffic on runway 18, same runway opposite direction as 36, the one we were doing the flyby on! It was controlled chaos, non-stop radio transmissions, planes shooting off left and right, and he did a great job. Mary managed the radio work while I used both hands to control altitude and fly the procedure. It was a good team performance, and a lot of fun.
Once on the ground, we taxied to our tiedown positions on the grass where helpful volunteers got us fuelled and squared away. Mary talking to Linda of the DC-3 team.
Debi and Linda of the DC-3 team, and plane covered in sponsor stickers. You can't see in this photo, but Debi has one horribly swollen foot due to fire ants - it looks terrible and she has to wear pink terrycloth flipflops! Its not stopping the team though.
Indiana pilot center
A peaceful scene - racers putting their planes away for the night. Many pilots got their planes put in hangars due to the storm due to come through later that night.
The Arrow bedded down, showing the duct tape covering the cowl fastener (which was half ripped off after our extremely fast and bumpy descent into Elkhart! I guess duct tape doesn't have much wind resistance at 182 kt...)
Once at our hotel, we went to dinner with a group of racers including the DC-3 and had a lovely time. I also called Sandy Terkelson (team 29), who is still stuck with her team mate at the first stop back in Georgia having to replace the carburetor. They had just finished the repairs, and she sounded very positive and eager to start up again tomorrow and catch us all up - go 29!! A gigantic thunderstorm including huge lightening, and accompanied by a tornade watch, passed over head while we were there. Apparently a tornado did touch down in nearby Goshen, but fortunately when we got back to the hotel after the storm had passed we found the following notice - all planes are safe!
And BTW, the following is a video of team Adelles Belles taking off in Fort Myers at the start, that made the television news in Florida!
http://www.news-press.com/section/videonetwork?bctid=97887913001#/Frontpage/34th%20Air%20Race%20Classic%20at%20Page%20Field/49408408001/48741885001/97887913001
No comments:
Post a Comment