Day 4 - Drake Field Is Coming Into Focus...



This was the most scenic shot on the way to La Junta -

a reservoir.

 Friday June 24 - It's the final day of the 2013 ARC run. Because of the extended delay on the ARC Start, the deadline for arriving at the Terminus was extended from 5pm local to sunset. We have a little extra cushion to make the flyby at Drake Field.  After making the 4 stops yesterday, the final 3 stops can be made comfortably today, assuming that we are not jinxed by weather or mechanical issues. The weather forecast seems good, and we just need to watch for isolated thunderstorms bubbling up.

 

We have a mere 3 stops to fly today, which sounds like an easy "Sunday $100 burger run," compared to the 4 stops that we powered through yesterday. It's an early wake-up call with Carole Sutton and her daughter scheduled to pick us up at 5:30 am. Harsh! But we want to get out to the airport early so that we can debug the plane, plan our legs a bit, AND spend a bit of time to plan how we'll transit the MOAs and the Alert airspace around Vance Air Force Base.  The plane is especially hard to debug this morning, because we had carried all the bugs from Spearfish thru Brookings and into Holdrege at the very end to help get a few of the last ones. I figured out the fuel order, filed our final ARC flight plan, and organized our plan for the three Military Operations Areas (MOAs) that we will fly through. In general, they are not much of an issue, because we fly below their active shelf and then need to get flight following and permission to transit Vance AFB. We decide to ask the controllers to let us transit thru the Tulsa airspace. After a weather briefing, we're off to wrap up this race, and we are ready for touching down at the terminus - Drake Field (Fayetteville AR).

The terrain between La Junta and Woodward -

not so interesting.

Holdrege NE to La Junta CO - it's a SLOW, HOT ride. Holdrege hit 94 deg F at 4:00 AM! It was gusty as we took off. As we were circling to position for our Departure Flyby to get back on the clock, we heard a team approaching for their Flyby coming in from Brookings.  Since they were still on the clock (and we weren't), we followed race etiquette to allow them in for their flyby. It was Purdue flying a Cirrus with a handicapped speed of nearly 180 kts (as compared to ours just shy of 130 kts). They screamed on through the timing line, and we were doing only about 100 kts on our flyby thanks to some quartering headwinds of nearly 50 kts. Yes, it was a very slow leg for us, although we found a little speed gain as we got away from Holdrege. The scenery was less than exciting with about the most excitement occurring about 132 miles from La Junta with a large reservoir of water off our left side. Otherwise, it was just mostly watching out for obstructions along the way. Flyby to Land. Fuel. Check weather. No real rush, unless we find weather or winds favoring a quick turn. Central time to Mountain time - "gaining" an hour...not really...

And no race is complete without a windmill shot.

La Junta CO to West Woodward OK - Mountain time back to Central time..."losing" the hour now. La Junta was a great little stop really. OJ and Daylight Donuts for breakfast. Now for those who don't know Daylight Donuts, they are a chain in the South and Midwest, and they are pretty good donuts. Again, it was nice to meet the local volunteers whom I had worked with earlier in the year as an ARC route liaison. All the volunteers that help at the en route stops do an awesome job of welcoming and hosting our racers.

And of course a great cloud shot -

between Woodward and Fayetteville.

Just as we're getting ready to leave, I get a text message from BJ, a crew member of Classic Racer 25 - our good friends from Idaho, GeneNora, Patty, and BJ. They have lost their radios and are inbound to Fayetteville from Woodward and will need to shoot their last flyby with no radios. Racers need to communicate their approach to flybys by radio so the timers know they're coming. Moreover, racers need to talk with the local traffic and listen to the local traffic to know what's around them when they're coming into Fayetteville. The "radio failure" procedure is to use lights and wag your wings, and the Drake tower will use light guns (green, OK; red, go around) to communicate with the plane. At first, I'm wondering what I can do with this text message in La Junta that will help these racers approaching Fayetteville. It was really a lucky turn that I was on the ground when their message came in, and it dawns on me to tell the La Junta Stop Chair so that she can pass the word to the Fayetteville Stop Chair. It works, and the word is passed on. It will be interesting to hear how it all turned out when we get to Fayetteville. I text BJ back to let her know that we got the message communicated to Fayetteville for them.

Yes, that's us flying thru Vance AFB and

approaching the Alert Area

The flight to Woodward is pretty uneventful. Hot. Headwinds. The terrain is now getting lower, and we're flying along watching for obstacles. We've decided that climbing isn't really worth it for us - costs time and no guarantees that the winds will be any major improvement for us. Now Lynn has not actually flown a flyby yet.  She's done a lot of flying en route, but I tell her that she can't claim the full Air Race Classic without doing a full speed flyby. I remind her that the Woodward flyby is at 500 ft above ground AND that she has done a masterful job of minding her altitude with precision when flying. She agrees, and we spend some time getting things ready to swap roles - she is flying the flyby, and I'll be coaching her on nailing the altitude and holding it. We're looking for the airport and the abandoned runway that she will do the flyby on. We've got it in sight, and Lynn nails the Flyby to Land. Whoohoo! We circle to land. It's our last fuel order. Skip the debugging. The winds are whipping on the ground. We just head off to the FBO for our last weather briefing and some refreshments. This little airport offers the racers a great welcome - everything in their refrigerators and freezers are free - snacks, sodas, water, AND ice cream. These ice creams were the best welcome treats on the whole race.

Yes, that's a racer plane above us flying toward FYV...

West Woodward OK to Fayetteville AR - LAST LEG! It's mid-afternoon, so we have lots of time to spare. If we had needed to land by the original deadline of 5pm today, we could have. But we knew it was sunset, and we still have plenty of time. We see a little weather popping up, so we decide not to loiter too long. If needed, we can deviate around anything isolated that pops up. But otherwise, we'll be landing about 6:30 pm. We take off, and Lynn takes the controls again to shoot the Departure Flyby out of Woodward. It's just so much fun shooting these top speed flybys over a runway or taxiway as the FAA race waivers permit. We're outta there and pushing on to Fayetteville. We enter the first Vance MOA, and as we transition into the second Vance MOA, we contact the Vance controllers to ask permission to fly through their Alert airspace - they give us a squawk code and we're flying through.

Classic 26 at rest on Drake Field...
tied down among the other race planes.

Tulsa airspace is a little different. We maybe should have climbed and flown above their controlled space, but we chose to ask for permission to transition through their airspace. It turned out that the controllers were super busy. We couldn't believe how much traffic they were directing. It was hard to get a word in edgewise with all the radio chatter. We finally got cleared into the airspace but then had to make a 10 degree deviation for traffic - small bits of time lost, but we're back on course to FYV. After we clear the Tulsa airspace, we're on the homestretch to Fayetteville. We're descending down into Fayetteville. We're loooking for the airport...looking...looking...talking to FYV tower...looking...they tell us to turn to our 1-2 o'clock...no airport...looking...we realize that we're too low, because the airport is on the other side of some hills...arrgghh...frustration with the tower vectoring...frustration with the knowledge that we descended too soon...we finally get the airport in sight for the last flyby...done!!! Circle and land. Ah not so fast, the plane in front of us takes a bit too long on the runway, and the tower tells us to prepare for a go-around. We are waved off to circle in again. Touch down. We completed the race. It was a crazy 4 days of flying, but we finished!

Day 3 - SEVEN Stops To Go - Only Two Days To GetThe Job Done...

Thu June 20 - We are up early and off to the airport. We have only two days left on the race to fly the last seven stops by sunset on Friday! In the previous 5 races, I've never flown 4 stops in one day, so it's looking dicey. Moreover, these last stops are the longer legs, as compared to P&R to Logan and Logan to Rawlins. So it's time to get booking on these flights. Our goal - to overnight in Holdrege NE (4 stops) or Brookings SD (3 stops).

We launch out of Logan and need to circle to get clear of the terrain and mountains heading to Rawlins. We fly south looking for the lake and canyon to fly into that will give us a little lower terrain; however, the rising sun is fully in our eyes, and we're unsure of the terrain. So we opt to climb higher - it will cost us time on this leg, but it is the safer option for us. Gorgeous day and weather, despite the headwind we have to deal with today - that 20+ knot tailwind yesterday sure would have made us happier. C'est la vie.

We swap off flying, and Lynn keeps us locked into our altitude with very little deviation. Today, we are just going to blast thru as many stops as we can to see if we can make Holdrege NE by sunset. It's a great flyby in Rawlins...circle to land by about 10 am...208+ naut miles covered (check!)...cool off with some some cold water and a quick rest break...a short chat with the stop chair and volunteers. Refuel, and we're back in the air...flyby to continue...destination - Spearfish SD.

The terrain is now descending...brown, rocky, craggy earth starts to smooth out...an emerald carpet appears in spots. The winds will do us no favors today, but there is no time to sit around and wait for conditions to become more favorable. We're planning a lunch run to The Green Bean in Spearfish, if we can get the crew car. Since most of the race pack is well ahead of us along the route, we don't anticipate a crowd on the ground. We've got Classic Racer 15 to talk to on the air-to-air frequency, and we meet them on the ground for our lunch run. Their Mooney is faster, and they're waiting for us. Flyby to land. Circle in, land, and taxi to the ramp. Nice lunch and little relaxation. Another 220+ naut miles covered - check! It's after 2 pm now. Back to the airport, fuel up, taxi out...flyby to continue - next stop - Brookings SD.

The land below is now really beginning to look more like home...green...farmland...large numbers of cattle grazing below...I tell the Purdue racer team that I don't want to hear about any cowtipping as they fly over this terrain...our little pack of racers is blasting along as best we can to Brookings. Another attribute of flying in the Midwest in the summer - copious numbers of bugs smashing against our wing edges and windshield. It's not a pretty sight at all.  It's now pushing towards 4pm, and we need to discuss whether to make the push for one more stop today. Brookings will be stop #3 today - 299+ naut miles. So what will it be - 4 stops today, or 4 stops tomorrow?  Either way it's a gamble. We agree that it's better to make the effort today. If we make it to the next stop, Holdrege NE, by sunset, we know that tomorrow will be "easy." If we don't make Holdrege before 9:11pm Central and shoot the Holdrege flyby AFTER sunset, then we're disqualified. Decision made - we're going for it. We line up for Brookings, shoot the flyby to land, circle in for the landing. It's a quick refueling turn...Lynn runs in to pay the fuel while I check and recheck the fuel this last leg of the day. Weather is good. While we normally debug to plane at each stop, there's no time for this now. These bugs are going to Holdrege with us. The windshield is disgusting and hard to look thru.

We fire up the engine, taxi out, shoot the timing line to get back on the clock and aim for Holdrege - 257 naut miles away. After we get on course and climb to our altitude, we check the GPS estimated time of arrival in Holdrege - 9:02 pm. If correct, we'll have 9 minutes to spare on the sunset rule. We're low to the ground for us, but not as low as many others fly. We're watching our terrain and obstructions closely along the charts. It's a new kind of flying for Lynn, but she's great (!) on this kind of flying, because she's so rock-solid on holding her altitude and spotting things outside the plane. She's nailed every airport sighting so far...taken care of flaps...timers...super job! We are watching our time, but there's nothing we can do to change it, as we're rocketing along as fast as the little Cardinal will fly us. Our ETA is still looking good.  The sun is getting low in the sky...Holdrege is getting near...we've got the airport in sight...we fly by at 9:02:30pm

Mission accomplished! The first time that I've knocked out 4 legs in one day in 6 races. We calculate it at 1000+ miles in a day, counting all the flybys and circling to land. We are wiped out and tired beyond belief. The ladies of the Nebraska 99s are there supporting the stop and waiting for us. They graciously help us find a motel for the night and offer to swing by a fast food place (our only options) to pick up some dinner. We opt for Runza's, a Nebraska experience, and take our host's recommendations on the burgers there - DEELICIOUS! Especially when you're dog-tired. Hah!

Day 2 - Itching to Get Started...

Although it's Day 2 of the race, many teams (like us) have not yet even started their race. The flyby of the timing line at P&R Field starts the race clock for each team. So after a few hours sleep at the Boise Inn, we are fueled, packed, and preflighted. Some thunderstorm activity is in the area and brewing, and we need to move out. The rain starts as we taxi out for launch. The air is chilly.

We shoot out of Boise on runway 28R and circle back around to the SE to pick out P&R Field - a needle in a haystack - a small private airstrip with just 3-4 homes - one with its "driveway" as our timing line. For us, it's a rare moment to do a "Flyby to Continue" rather than a "Flyby to Land" where we typically refuel. It's just minutes from Boise, but the weather is suddenly much warmer and brighter. Lynn nails the airfield sighting, we make our flyby calls - 10 miles out, 5 miles out, lights on for visibility - flying top speed, dropping down to just 200 ft above ground - wings level, APPROACHING FLYBY. We buzz by the homes below. We are on the clock and now climbing out for stop #2 - Logan UT.

 Time to put away the first flyby papers, settle in for our first leg, and plan for the next flyby. Today's goal - Logan and Rawlins. While we would like to complete more of the route, the density altitude of Rawlins will limit our capabilities. While only about 6000 ft elevation, it typically gets to be 10,000 ft density altitude early on in the day, which means the plane has very limited performance - it's as if you're trying to fly off a field that's at 10,000 ft altitude, not 6,000 ft. So we know that we'll only complete 2 stops this day. We'll do a "Flyby to Land" at Logan (LGU) and after landing, we'll check conditions and the flight plan for Rawlins, refuel, and launch for LGU.

Flyby #2 - just 300 ft above the ground at top speed - such an adrenaline rush...we circle out and come into land at LGU. It's a familiar place, since we spent the night here on our way to Pasco. We taxi in and grab a few things to flight plan for RWL. Not so fast...the winds at RWL are gusitng to 40+ knots. We'll have a great tailwind to RWL, which will be great for our race score, but the surface winds in RWL are just too high for us to take off right away. The forecast is for winds to die down around 8 pm this evening. It's just 11 am now, and we'll be cooling our heels for several hours now on the ground at LGU. We'll plan to take off from LGU so that our flyby and landing at RWL will occur in calmer winds. The stop chair at RWL assures us that we'll have a place to stay the night there despite the lack of hotel rooms.

The day drifts by chatting with folks at the airport. We take a crew car into town for a good meal. We listen to the weather briefing in the car on the way back to the airport. The winds are still blustery and gusting, and the weather briefer relays that the high surface gusts are staying for several more hours through the night in RWL. Our plans change...no launch for RWL...we're looking to book a room for the night in LGU. Day 2 of the race ends in frustration. Today's great tail wind speeds over the mountains are lost, and we have only flown 1 leg today. We have 7 stops yet to complete and only 2 days left to do them. We may not be able to complete the race route by the deadline for arriving at the terminus, despite the extension from 5pm to sunset on Friday. And Day 3 will bring headwinds that will hurt our scores...

Day 1 - Pasco to Mtn Home to Logan - Not So Fast...

Cooling our heals on the ramp at Pasco...waiting...

Well, it was the ghost of Iowa City hanging over Pasco on launch morning...overcast but still VFR and flyable...EXCEPT for a little swath of the path from Pasco to Mountain Home...low clouds dripping across the race route. The 8 am launch was on hold until 9 am. A chase plane checks it out - yep, it's not VFR flyable there with the low hanging clouds. The launch is on hold until 1 pm. Tick, tock.

Finally, it's decided that we need to cancel the launch from Pasco. Having experienced that with the 2011 ARC Start in Iowa City, I completely understand the pain for Marjy and the Start City hosts. The racers are advised to hold in Pasco for weather to clear or to fly SAFELY to another location and plan to start their races by doing the flyby at P&R Field (Mountain Home ID) - that flyby will start their race clocks. Folks are free to start whenever.

Flying towards Boise...out of the clouds...

We talk with our ID buddies - Classic 5, GeneNora, Patty, and BJ. An indirect path to P&R is chosen, we flight plan, weather brief, and we're off. All starts well...however...then the ground rises to lowering clouds. We reach a point quickly where we decide to change route a bit, and then call a pop-up IFR flight plan with the controller. We're cleared for the IFR flight, but we've got to climb quite high - 11,000 ft - doable, but we know there's potential for icing. We're in and out of clouds...finally reaching 11K ft skimming just the raggedy edges of some clouds...picking up just trace frost on the leading edges of the wings...we creep down a little to stay clear of clouds and ice...then we're out of the clouds and all is good again.

Fueling at Caldwell Industrial...a bit deserted...
winds blowing 40 kts...sucking dust...hoping the outhouse
didn't blow over with me in it...

We continue south to Burns, which is a straight shot west of Boise, and turn towards Boise. The plan was to get fuel at Caldwell (near Boise), "flyby to continue" at P&R Field, and charge on to Logan UT. Well, as we near Caldwell, I see a small line of dust on the ground kicking up...it grows...we past thru some dust haze as we begin planning for the landing at Caldwell. All of a sudden, we go from calm air to a 45-50 kt direct cross wind hitting the plane. We scoot around and land at Caldwell, looking for fuel. As we touch down for taxi, we see a monster dust storm /wall blow up.

After refueling, using the porta-john by the fuel pump (and hoping the 45 kt wind doesn't blow the unit over with me in it), we decide to still fly to Mountain Home tonight...but now the dust wall is moving thru Mtn Home and Boise...we wait...it's turning dark, but we launch...the winds at Mtn Home are still gusting, and we tell the controller that we'll make one attempt to land there and then fly on to Boise for the night, if Mtn Home is too gusty...we sleep in Boise this night.

Twas the Night Before Race Start...

It's dark and quiet in our room, and I'm sitting on my bed in the glow of my computer screen.  Lynn is asleep with ARC dreams dancing in her head (I hope). She seems to be sleeping well with no tossing and turning.

I, on the other hand, cannot fall asleep quite yet. The night before race launch is kind of like Christmas Eve. Oh, the possibilities are limitless. For now, we all feel like winners. We're all thinking about what the next 9 race legs will bring...what will the weather bring - tail winds and good weather, hopefully. But no matter what, we will all fly our best, learn from our efforts, and form long-lasting bonds and friendships with this special group of women who come together each year for this race.

Our gear is all packed and ready to go. The electronics are all charging up around the room in their outlets. Our flight bags are packed. The alarm is set. In a few hours, we'll be loading the car, catching our All Racers Breakfast and Final Weather Briefing together. Then it's a race to the airport - turn in the rental car, load the plane, preflight, and get ready to START YOUR ENGINES! 40+ planes will be taxiing out to the runway to launch 1-by-1 thirty seconds apart...

I hope to get out to the airport early enough to snap some pictures of the planes all lined up on the ramp with pilots racing around to preflight and launch. It's a sight...

Time to turn the light out and drift off to my ARC dreams...I'll be flying our first race leg from Pasco WA (PSC) to Mountain Home ID (U76) with a top speed flyby at P & R Field (ID26) just 200 ft above the ground down a little private runway that's 2600 ft long by 24 ft wide...Classic Racer 26 is Approaching Flyby...zzzzzz....

Landed in Pasco Thu Jun 13 @ noon - Leg 3 - Logan (LGU) to Baker City (BKE) to Pasco (PSC)

It has been perhaps the best flight that I have ever taken - flying tandem to the Air Race Classic - 3 delightful days from the prairies of the Midwest across the Rockies to the Pacific Northwest. My co-pilot and I are enjoying the view from above as the terrain has changed. We've had a riot in the cockpit talking air-to-air with Sue Jones in her "Stealth" Beech Sundowner flying just 2 miles off our wing and 300 ft below us somewhere...checking and rechecking our respective positions...trying to get a word in edgewise on the frequency with 2 other guys yapping about their elk hunting and full voice mailboxes.

Sue tried her best to hold us to a commitment of wheels up at 0600, but we prevailed and delayed until 0645. Still as I take the runway, I told Lynn it was probably about the earliest launch I ever made. Clouds moving in a bit...sun was up...cool air. We launch from Logan to be sure to beat any weather today and land in Pasco at the Start.

Our mission is to overfly P&R Field, which will be the first flyby of the race - it's a tiny private strip northwest of Mountain Home ID. P&R is a runway/street (2,600 ft x 24 ft) with 3 homes on it. As a private field, the GPS coordinates are estimated and known to be inaccurate.  Just a little more fun to locate it...while avoiding the nearby restricted airspace that the controller is reminding us about, talking position of our aircraft with Sue, and circling to get eyes on this little airstrip for a visual image that will be useful for that first flyby.

We've got this bit of sightseeing done, and now we're off to Baker City OR (BKE) for fuel. Another new state to add to my collection for landings. It's a great little airport with photos of Amelia Earhart on the way and a poignant photo of Robert F. Kennedy walking his dog on the airport just 8 days before he was assassinated. It's a gorgeous view on the ramp. An FBO guy offers us a lift into town to pick up some lunch, since the jet guys have the crew car. We relax a bit over lunch talking with the guys at the airport, and then we're off for the short 1-hr hop to Pasco. We climb to about 8500 ft, cross the last ridges and mountains, start  the "downhill" slide, chasing our Stealth winglady, and overtaking her. Bingo! Lynn catches a glimpse of her at our 8 o'clock as we've overtaken her for the final ride into Tri-Cities Regional Airport (Pasco, PSC).

The elevation is now a bit over 400 ft (less than Iowa City's 668 ft)! The Tri-Cities area includes Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland - all at the confluence of the Columbia, Snake, and Yakima Rivers. Beautiful country from the sky. We are vectored into land, and we touch down about noon on Thursday.  We are just the 4th and 5th planes to arrive at the race start, and we receive a great welcome with volunteers immediately plane side to offer cold water and help getting us tied down and taking our gear and bags inside. We are here!

Flight to Pasco - Leg 2 - Cheyenne to Rawlins to Logan

Our first snow-capped mountain

I am simply NOT a morning person...but the Air Race Classic demands it...for those who know me, you will find it hard to believe that I could be climbing in my plane for a 7 am departure. Sue is taxiing off as I fumble to get my plane started at an unfamiliar altitude. Cheyenne is nearly 6,200 ft MSL, as compared to Iowa City at just under 700 ft. After 2-3 failed attempts to start up, a kindly instructor came by to provide some guidance on starting up the plane at this altitude - a little less priming and no leaning. The engine snaps to life and Leg 2 is underway.



Following I-80 to Logan

Elevation is rising today...mountains ahead...Lynn flies much of this legf and makes a slow, lazy climb to 10,500 ft as we approach Logan.  Just an hour into the flight we fly over Rawlins WY (RWL) - Stop 3 on the race route.  We're now "back-flying" the first third of the race route going into Pasco. This stop was among the northern tier of the 2011 ARC route that was cancelled but as the "Grateful Dead Reckoners" team, we flew all of those stops, and I'll be wearing my 2011 RWL souvenir hat when I land there next week.

It's another 2 hours to Logan, and a final climb to 11,000 is needed to climb over the last ridge of mountains. Much of the terrain is brown, barren, and desolate, but it has its own beauty...rock formations, isolated pools of water, snowcapped mountains in the distance. Yep, this is why it's special to fly, and ARC takes us far and wide on its everchanging routes.

The land falls away precipitously after crossing the last ridge. Logan is right there on the west side of these mountains, and we need to bleed off nearly 6,000 ft of altitude to get down to the pattern altitude for landing at 5400 ft. We make some sweeping spirals west of Logan and away from the city and set up for a calm wind landing on Runway 35.

It's only 11:30 am, and we're off with the crew car for lunch. Oh yeah, Sue beat us into Logan by about 30 min. This tandem flight idea started as my offer to fly with Sue, who was going solo to meet her co-pilot in WA, and provide "support" flying through the mountains.  In reality, Sue is providing the support for this normally IFR to reconnect with her earlier VFR training - yep, refresher training is my benefit from flying the ARC every year.

The weather blocks our effort to make Pasco today.  We lay around watching weather for awhile and then get the planes tied down for the night.  After a great lunch at Angie's Diner, some driving around Logan and a nice dinner at Gia's, its time to call it a day...a plan is afoot for a VERY early wake-up call...Sue is calling for wheels up at 6 am to make Pasco before weather moves in.


The land is rising up to meet us as we close in on Logan...