The results are in!!

Tonight we went out to the awards banquet, full of anticipation for the final results! The evening began as usual with speeches, and then handing out of race certificates and plaques to each team that competed, but finally the awards part started. The collegiate trophy went to Purdue, who got the highest score of the eight collegiate teams competing. The award for the lowest score without penalty went to Sandi Terkelson and Heather, the team who got stuck for two days at the first stop in Georgia, and still heroically made it through by the finish deadline on Friday! They got a big round of applause. There were also leg prizes, but Mary and I didn't get any of those, which wasn't a good sign! Then finally the top ten awards were given out. We knew we weren't in the top ten, but were eager to see who was, and we were delighted that our baby birds Barbara Para and Laurie Zaleski came in sixth with a score of 10.271!! many congratulations to them. What was even more awesome was that our great friend Laura and partner Joyce came in second - we couldn't be happier for them. And finally, Terry Carbonell and her team came in first. Terry is a tireless worker for the Air Race Classic, and a great friend to new racers, and her victory was well deserved, with a 16 point score which was well ahead of anyone else.

So how did we do? Well, out of 51 teams competing, of whom 50 completed the race, with scores ranging from 16.0 to -19.16, we came 21st with a score of 8.2. So we flew a good clean fast race, which we finished successfully, had an absolute blast in the process, and ended up with a respectable score in the top half of the pack. We are happy with this result!

Tomorrow we leave early for the short flight back to PA, and the 2010 Air Race Classic will officially end for us. Till next year!!

The top ten race teams!

(Above) Barb P and Laurie, sixth place winners!

(Below) The new olive oil store in Frederick - everyone should go, we highly recommend it!

Ethel and Barb Z at the start of the banquet

Bill and Camelia with Barb Z

Saturday - race scores and history

Saturday is our penultimate day in Frederick. Alison had breakfast with Laura, Linda and Barbara S, before running Linda and Barbara out to the airport so that they could depart back to PA in Linda's C182. Mary got up early and went to the airport to help fly timing flights for the top twelve airplanes (which sadly does not include us!). The top airplanes are reinspected, and where necessary their handicaps are rechecked with a new handicapping run, before their scores are finalized. We were delighted to discover that our baby birds Barb P and Laurie are in the top twelve, as are our good friends Laura and Joyce. Barb, Laurie and Joyce are all first timer racers, so regardless of the final rankings this is a huge accomplishment for them, and we are very proud of all of them!

Later in the afternoon it was our turn to meet with Marvin the chief scorer to check our final scores and sign off on them. Like all the racers, we had kept our own records of time off, time on, elapsed time, and a note of which airplane is before and which after us on each leg, because it helps to have this information as a check on the official scores, and also to use in discussion if there are any discrepancies. (We were missing information on the last leg though, which was rather a busy one!). Marvin's scores agreed very well with ours, except for leg 5 which was lower because we incurred a 2 kt penalty. We did not inquire about the cause of the penalty, but let's just say that Carbondale airport had two south facing runways 18L and 18R, one of which was obscured by trees at low altitude, and we were not the only team to experience a little confusion when setting up for the flyby on 18R. So how did we do? Well, our overall score was 8.206 kt over handicap, meaning that our average speed over the entire 2158 nm race was 155.946 kt (which is about 180 mph). Despite the much higher handicap this year, we only had one leg that was marginally negative (-0.229 kt), and our highest leg score was 15.076 kt. So we feel quite pleased that we ran a respectable race. But we won't know the all-important rankings until Sunday night....

Tonight we went to a wonderful event, which was the premier screening of "Breaking through the clouds", a movie about the 1929 All Women's Transcontinental Air Derby from Santa Monica, CA to Cleveland, OH (http://www.breakingthroughtheclouds.com/). This race was the predecessor for the current Air Race Classic, and also led to the founding of The Ninety-Nines that same year. This was doubly poignant since 2010 is the 100th anniversary of licensed women pilots. The event was sold out and took place in the auditorium of Hood College, with an introduction by the producer Heather Taylor. For me the most amazing part was that the 1929 movie footage of the 19 participating pilots, (all names that I and my fellow racers and 99s are very familiar with, including Lousie Thaden, Phoebe Omlie, Amelia Earhart, Bobbi Trout, Marvel Crosson, Blanche Noyes, and Pancho Barnes), which was somehow restored to high definition quality so that you really felt these women were right there talking. There was one death in the race when Marvel Crosson crashed in the desert, and some of the planes were sabotaged by putting oil in the fuel or cutting the guide wires of the wings, but despite everything 14 of the women completed the race and Louise Thaden won the trophy. These were extraordinary, pioneering, fearless women, and the movie was great.

Not a very interesting photo, but the only one I had time to take today before the battery ran out.

We then went on to a reception in the Delaplaine art gallery in Frederick, which was sponsored by our Eastern PA Chapter of the 99s in memory of our beloved Theresa Dellaquila, who we lost to breast cancer in 2007. It was a lovely event in a beautiful setting, great food, and a good chance to catch up with all the other racers on how they felt the scoring had gone. Gail Norman, Lin Caywood, Seth van Lehn and all the Sugarloaf team that organized the terminus events have done a phenomenal job, each event has been just wonderful.

Race day 4 - a free holiday

First of all, you're probably wondering about the scoring now that we finished. Well, what happens is that on Friday (today) the judges identify the top 12 or 13 planes and call them to tell them the planes will be impounded for re-inspection the following day. Then, on Saturday, each team in the race discusses their scores against handicap in detail with the scorers, and signs off on the final scores. Each score is determined by calculating distance-seconds for each leg, and ending up with the number of knots over (or under) handicap for each leg, and for the race in total. We don't find out until Sunday how the teams placed. But we do know that the judges didn't call us yet, so we likely didn't make top ten.

The arrival deadline for the race is 5pm today (Friday). About 30 teams arrived yesterday, with the remaining 20 or so arriving today. Anecdotally, we believe there were two teams out of 51 who did not make it to the arrival deadline - one was stuck in Tuscaloosa with an engine problem that couldn't be fixed on time, and one arrived 10 minutes after the deadline due to similar issues. Normally on race day 4 we'd still be racing, but this year we finished already, so it was a free day! Alison spent the morning in intensive spa therapy, and feels like a new woman; then met Linda and Barbara S at the airport and took them for lunch and a walk around Frederick. Linda and Barbara S spent the morning flying Laurie Zaleski back to Hammonton NJ to pick up her own plane. Mary spent the entire day helping meet, greet and transport the 20 or so teams who arrived during the day.

In the evening, we all converged at the Meltdown reception in hangar 18 at Frederick, which was awesome - barbecue food, a band, helicopter lessons, art, and good company. We drove back to the hotel for a further hour at the bar, and finally turned in for the night.

Heather takes a helicopter lesson!

Hangar 18 meltdown party at Frederick

Debi and her granddaughter Savannah

Wings of Hope team Bev and Theresa, with Linda also in pink

Kristin and her partner

Alison's new plane?

Alison and chief mechanic Verne

Original art for sale at hangar party

 

Linda and Barbara in Frederick

This gate is all trompe l'oiel painting (I'm sure I spelled that wrong)

And so is this - it can only be seen sideways on!

Race day 3 - we made it!!

Woke up this morning in Indiana after the storms of the previous night, to a 900 foot overcast and a chilly day. After getting breakfast and a weather briefing, we took an early ride to the Elkhart airport. Our plane was fine, although a bit wetter than when we left it the night before, and the pitot tube cover had blown away in the storm. The briefers had forecast that the low overcast would lift and break up, but cautioned about convective weather warnings to the north of our route.

Our friends Linda and Barbara had been texting and calling all the previous day – they ended up flying out from Pennsylvania to Parkersburg in Linda’s club C-182 to meet up with us along the race route, and had spent the night there.

We waited around for an hour or so till we judged the weather to be acceptable (which is always a combination of hard information and gut instinct), then took off for our flyby to continue to Parkersburg WV (PKB) around 10am, Mary flying. The first part of the route was beautiful, with severe clear visibility under the breaking cloud deck, and we zoomed along with a nice tailwind admiring the scenery. However it soon became clear while talking to Flightwatch and to the race planes ahead, and looking at the radar on the GPS, that an angry looking line of thunderstorms was building directly across our route, just before Parkersburg. As we approached the line, darker lowering clouds and light rain appeared, but we found a gap to fly through. On the other side however the weather was dark, scuddy and raining, and since the next and final leg was quite a short one, we decided we had plenty of fuel to fly the procedure at Parkersburg as a flyby to continue, so we could then exit the area quickly and find better weather. So we flew right past Linda and Barbara, who saw us flyby overhead then shoot right off for Maryland without stopping!

The flight profile for the Parkersburg to Frederick route involved a climb from flyby altitude to about 4000 feet to get over the mountains, then a descent back down again to the lower plains where Frederick sits. Initially we were paralleling rather than outrunning the storm line west to east, so the first part of this final leg was dark and not very pleasant. But as we started to climb and round the end of the storm line, conditions improved quite a lot until things were calm enough for us to effect a mid-air change of pilots, with Alison moving in to the pilots seat and Mary over into the right seat. This was a first time for me, and I’m here to tell you its no easy thing in a Piper Arrow! But we managed it and I flew the rest of the way. The last thing that this day of challenging flying threw at us was about 60 miles of bone-jarring turbulence as we crossed the mountain ridges, to the extent that we had to tighten our seat belts to stop our heads hitting the roof. We got clearance through Martinsburg, then descended into Frederick for the final flyby, then cooled off and landed on runway 30. We had finished the race!!

We taxied to the ramp, and saw that none other than Mary’s husband Arnie was there to marshall us into place! We tied down and unpacked the plane, and went into the terminal where we were welcomed by the official ARC greeters, 99s from the Sugarloaf, Washington DC and other chapters. We also found then and later that so many of our friends from the Eastern PA Chapter had come down either to help the terminus organizers, or to welcome us and Ethel and Barb. Our friends at the terminus included Linda Evans, Barbara Strachan, Kate Macario, Gayl Henze, Arnie Wunder, Adelle Bedrossian, Silver Knepshield, Heather Hill with Dan and their girls, Laura Fonseca and Gene Poppel.

After a late lunch at the terminal, we checked into our hotel, and went back to the airport to be reunited with Linda and Barbara, who finally made it in from Parkersburg around 530pm. For Mary, the day ended with quite a few hours working at the airport, helping the terminus organizers to meet and greet the 20 or so teams who arrived after us, and transport them to their hotels. For Alison, the day ended with Linda, Barbara S and I going out for a lovely relaxing dinner with Ethel and Barbara Z, Laura, Gene, and Heather, Dan and their girls at an Italian restaurant in the old downtown area of Frederick.

Barb Z, belated happy birthday!! And MaryEllen, if you’re reading this, get better soon, we’ve all been thinking about you.

A well deserved dinner out - Alison and Barb Z















Heather and Ethel

















Laura and Gene

















Everyone!









Susan and Seth at the terminus













Ethel and Barb with Mary just after arriving










Gayl and Kate














Mary, Adelle and Alison (Adelle is the owner of N29SP aka Classic Racer 9!)










Frederick has many airplanes, even on a normal day













Linda and her plane

















Linda Cain and Peggy Doyle at the terminus


















A beautiful day in Indiana












Still a beautiful day in Indiana (but not for much longer..)















The Baron on a fly by at Elkart (this is the only twin engine plane in the race)












One of the collegiate teams relaxes after arrival in FDK!

End of race day 2 - Indiana

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