Reports06

2006 AIR RACE REPORTS

Tuesday June 13, 2006

Our plan to depart this morning was scratched due to Tropical Storm “Alberto”…..

Wednesday June 14, 2006 Opa-locka (OPF) Miami, FL - Panama City, FL (PFN) - Lake Charles, LA (LCH)

We finally took off this morning at 8:35 AM. Thanks to Becky Ritter, we have some great take off photos. We decided to fly VFR just so we could get used to filing, opening and closing flight plans.

We had some good tailwinds as far as Cross City, but as soon as we turned west, we encountered strong head winds…..We stopped in Panama City for fuel and we had lunch at the Big Fish Restaurant (great She crab soup).

Our next leg was to Lake Charles, Louisiana (LCH), which was our last stop for the day. The flight over the southern coastline was quite beautiful. There are a lot of military bases in this region, as well as lots of oil rigs and barges. We crossed over the Mississippi River and along the very impressive Lake Pontchartrain Causeway near New Orleans. It is quite an engineering feat.

The personnel at the Lake Charles Airport FBO were very helpful in getting us a rental car and a hotel reservation at the “Best Suites Hotel”. We drove to dinner at Pats of Henderson, which was recommended by the hotel and it turned out to be a great seafood restaurant. Great Gumbo! Too Cajun for Tamra.

Thursday, June 15, 2006 Lake Charles, LA (LCH) - Coulter Field, TX (CFD) – Ozona, TX (OZA) - Santa Teresa (Dona Ana), NM (5T6)

The Best Suites Hotel was across the street from the boardwalk around Lake Charles which made for a nice morning walk. There are several piers and on one pier we met a young lady from Texas who was spending the summer with her Dad here in Lake Charles. She was crabbing (using chicken legs to catch the crabs) and he was fishing. Made for some nice photos.

Off to the airport for our next leg to Ozona, Texas (OZA). This is a race stop so we wanted to see it on our way to Arizona. En route we also did a fly-by Coulter Field in Bryan, Texas, which is also another stop on the race route. We had lots of haze all day. Texas is a huge state, seems like it is even longer to get through than Florida. It also has lots of oil fields and farms, including ones that have long metal structures like hangars that Sonia calls chicken farms. We noticed that BMQ Burne, Texas has a 99s compass rose. We also passed a huge dam at Buchanan Lake and saw many dry river beds and stretches of dry brown land… not to mention that it was quite hot and bumpy.

Our next leg from OZA to 5T6 Dona Ana Airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico was even bumpier. The briefer told us about the El Paso trough, which is the result of low pressure inverted winds which come from many directions. This leg was even bumpier than the last.

Not only did we see oil fields on this leg, but also fields and fields of windmills. We had originally intended to go to Las Cruces to see one of our sponsors (Gail Mathews) but the winds there were SW 20-25 with gusts to 35 so we decided to go back to Santa Teresa, besides this is one of the stops on the race. Winds here were SW from 230 at 29 knots. Quite a cross wind landing!

The elevation here is 4200 ft. and the density altitude is 8500ft. We really noticed the difference in the performance of the airplane. The climb was very slow and we were only getting manifold pressure of 22 inches.

We got there just as they were closing, but when we called in they asked if we needed anything and of course, we needed a hotel, fuel, car, etc., and they were kind enough to stay and help. They even gave us the use of the van (stick shift with no air conditioning).

We stayed at the La Quinta Hotel, only 5 miles but it was actually is in El Paso, Texas even though we landed in New Mexico. The Mexican border is only 4 miles south… we could see the border fence from the air.

Friday June 16, 2006 Santa Teresa (Dona Ana), NM (5T6) - Falcon Field (FZZ), Mesa, AZ

As we were having breakfast at the hotel, we ran into another race team who had arrived after us and was brought to the hotel by one of the guys at the airport. Judy and Janet, sisters from Indiana, “the Falcon Chicks” team 18…. We took them back to the airport in our “turbo charged” stick shift non-air conditioned van!!!

The final leg of our trip to the start of the race in Mesa, Arizona. We took off, leaning the mixture, and climbed slowly to 8500 Ft.

It was bumpy and windy today also, but not as bad as yesterday. We were able to hold either the altitude or the heading but both together was tough. The various altitude of the mountainous terrain was interesting; the land kept getting closer and closer.

We saw vast areas of brown dry valleys of land, with a few small towns here and there all surrounded by lots of beautiful brown rock mountains. We did see one lake, were Coolidge Dam was built and a few farming spots but mostly mountains.

Upon arriving in Mesa, we checked in and registered with the race hospitality desk. We then took the Cardinal to Falcon Executive to have the carburetor heat cable repaired, which they did very quickly. Meantime, we rented the car and went to the hotel while we waited for that to be completed.

Later in the afternoon we went back to the airport to pick up the plane from the repair shop and, taxied it back to the air race ramp, where we started putting the race numbers on the tail. It was very hot and we were lucky that one of the guys opened the hangar for us and brought us inside as we finished putting the numbers on the tail.

Saturday, June 17, 2006 Mesa, Arizona

We woke up early at 5AM, we’re on Mountain Standard time here, but our bodies are still on Eastern Daylight time. It was cool and quite pleasant out early in the morning. Made a quick trip to Starbucks and then on to the airport for the airplane inspections. They went through all the logs and commented on how nicely organized they are (thanks Terry!!!). The cowling was taken off and they checked to make sure all the nuts and bolts were in place and of course they were…

Then Ruby Sheldon went with us over to the run up area and did an RPM check.

N7136X passed with flying colors!!! And we were tagged as ready for the race!!!

All this by 9:30 AM and were we glad because, boy does it get hot here by 9AM.

We also requested fuel and I was surprised by the fuelers question of how much room he should leave in the tanks for expansion due to heat. He said people usually left ½ to 1 inch at the top, so that’s what we did…..

We then did some sightseeing. We drove out to Hwy 88 to the Goldfield Ghost Town, in Apache Junction. We even met the person whose idea it was to rebuild the mining town here. Seems he bought the land and planned to put the gold mine attraction, the City wanted more than that for the proper commercial zoning so he researched and recreated several buildings like they were in the old times and leased them out and now has a project much like a shopping center but it is an attraction. We took the train ride around the town, got some local stories, saw Superstion Mountain, and took bunches of neat pictures.

We then went further along Hwy 88 and the Apache Trail, through to Canyon Lake…. Surprising to find a lake and so many boats out here in the desert.

Beautiful scenery, mountains, saguaro cactus, and yet so dry and so brown….

Early in the evening we had a reception in hotel lobby for the group and then we had d inner with “The Falcon Chicks” Team 18 Judy Longenecker & Janet Cannon at La Dos Molinos, good "hot" Mexican food.

Sunday, June 18, 2006 Mesa, Arizona

We took it easy in the morning, organizing pictures etc.

We had lunch at America’s Cheesecake Café, Judy & Janet joined us… and then we a ttended the first timers briefing in the afternoon, just to see what tips were given… actually it seemed like everyone else was there too, not just first timers.

The take –off reception and banquet was in the evening… Tamra made it a personal mission to go to every table and get all the racers signatures in her program book… Later in the evening, each race team was called up and given this years race charm. This was followed by a cowboy poet who entertained us with his Arizona cowboy humor.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Mesa, Arizona

We brought our excess luggage to the lobby at 7:30 AM to be loaded into the truck, which was taking everyone’s extra weight to Menomonee.

There was a mandatory morning briefing for all racers, which included a safety briefing from the FAA and a weather briefing from the ADDS weather official. They also reviewed race rules, filing flight plans, fuel slips, remain over night rules, fly-by instructions for each airport and landing instructions for each stop. There is a certain route we must fly from Dona Ana, New Mexico as we navigate around El Paso Air Space to Ozona, Texas as well as various other suggestions, and requirements.

A full morning followed by a lunch at Mimi’s across the street from the hotel. We had lunch with Janet and Judy team #18 , Marie and Susan Carastro, team #20 and Gretchen Jahn (CEO of Mooney) and Carol Foy, team #6.

Tamra decided to enrich the local economy at the mall after lunch, while Sonia went back to the hotel.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 Race Starts

1st Leg - Mesa (FFZ) to Dona Ana Airport, (5T6) Santa Teresa, New (271 NM)

Early morning (5:30 AM) mandatory breakfast and briefing before heading out to the airport to start the race. This morning we were handed our handicap and they assigned us the same as last year. We had protested the handicap from last year, yet they decided not to change it but did not tell us until the last minute. We were very dissapointed.

We had a weather briefer from NOAA and got an overview of what to expect along the route. However, we got a better weather briefing from our friend Becky as we were driving to the airport.

Once at the airport, we pre flighted and then waited our turn to start our engines and taxi out for take-off in turn. Really neat to see all these planes taking off approximately 30 seconds apart.

The timers were in the control tower as we took off and took the time of departure as we flew by it. We then turned on course for Dona Ana (5T6) and climbed to 7600 ft. It took 15 minutes to climb to altitude and as soon as we passed thru 6500 ft. the RPM dropped to 22 inches. Oh, that density altitude really does affect performance. About 1 hour into the flight we had a slight hiccup and quickly enriched the mixture, seems in our leaning the mixture, we had leaned just a little too much or in reality, the density probably increased even though our altitude stayed the same, which meant we had to lean a little less. We had some nice tailwinds on this leg.

We had no problem in finding Dona Ana Airport and quickly made our calls to fly-by the timing line. All our fly-bys will be done at 200 ft. AGL and at full speed.

Once on the ground we were greeted by the line men who were dressed in Tuxedo Shirts and bowtie. Since this was the first stop a lot of the airplanes were here so we spent about one hour on the ground and we lost one hour due to the time change. However, our time on the ground was well spent, they had great food and goodies for us.

2nd Leg - Dona Ana Airport (5T6), Santa Teresa, New Mexico to Ozona, Texas (OZA) (290 NM)

This leg of the race was very Hot and bumpy and we encountered headwinds. We flew the first part of the route at 5500 ft and then went lower to 4500 ft. We were able to maintain full power at these altitudes. We flew over many oil fields and the wind mills over west Texas.

We lost one more hour due to time change to Central time, so by the time we got into Ozona it was 5:30 PM local time. They had only one fuel pump so there was a line of airplanes waiting to be fueld ahead of us, so by the time we got fuel it was too late to continue to our next stop. We are required to arrive before official sunset so we decided to stay here overnight.

This turned out to be difficult as Ozona only has 3 or 4 hotels and we got a room at the Hillcrest Motel. No internet, cell phones didn't work in the room so we had to go to the parking lot outside. We had dinner with some of the other teams at the Hitching Post (a converted sheep barn) rather rustic but it was good. The young man who was the cashier, lives next door and he let us go into his house to see the weather on his internet. Very accommodating!!!

Later, Tamra called and filed flight plans for the 3 legs we plan to fly tomorrow. As she was sitting in the parking lot, sheI noticed that the Hillcrest Motel has a electronic sign showing the time and temperatureIt was 90 degrees at 9pm!!!

Wednesday June 21, 2006

3rd Leg - Ozona, Texas (OZA) to Coulter Field (CFD) Bryan, Texas (251 NM)

A long day ahead … We got up at 5 AM for pick up to the airport at 6AM. There was some fog and mist in Bryan so all the planes at Ozona decided to wait awhile before departure. Fortunately, we spoke to Becky while at the airport and she told us that it would burn off by the time we got there, so we left ahead of everyone else and sure enough, when we got to Bryan it was nice and clear. We made our fly-by trhough the timing line and landed for fuel. The guys is Bryan were very helpful and qucikly topped-off our tanks and we were able to depart fast. We got lucky we were the only ones there.

4th Leg - Coulter Field (CFD) Bryan, Texas to Bastrop , Louisiana (2F8) (258 NM)

2F8 – Very friendly and most helpful… a journalist from the local paper was there to do a story about the race. One of the voluteers made Gumbo, which Sonia found to be fantastic. They also had sandwiches, refreshments and other goodies.

5th Leg- Bastrop , Louisiana (2F8) to Ada, Oklahoma (ADH) (269 NM)

Again, we were greated by very nice people, they had lots of refreshing fruit and snacks for us. There was a young lady parking, fueling planes and collecting money for the fuel. Needless to say she was very busy. Once more, we were lucky to get there ahead of the other airplanes so after talking to Becky, we decided to go ahead and do one more leg today and make to Lawrence, Kansas.

6th Leg - Ada, Oklahoma (ADH) to Lawrence, Kansas (LWC) (262 NM)

We had some really nice tailwinds on this leg. This was probably the best leg we've flown so far. We were met at the Aiport by Daphne a local 99 who took us to our hotel. Today was a really long day…

We walk to Biggs Bar-B-Q for dinner, which was about 1 block from the hotel. Great Food and Beer!

Thursday June 22, 2006

7th Leg - Lawrence, Kansas (LWC) to Albert Lea, Minnesota (AEL) (292 NM)

Only two legs to go!!! We got to the airport at about 8:00 am. Unfortunately, weather was moving in and we just missed the opportunity to depart between rain showers… we were already in the plane when it started to rain very hard and the airport quickly got socked in… So we waited around the airport all morning and the volunteers at the Airport ordered luch for everyone. After luch, we looked at the weather again. It seems that is what we did all morning and decided to leave at around 1: 30 pm…We were fortunate that the weather had passed and did not encouter any bad weather. Some of the racers that were flying into Lawrence had to deviate for weather.

Once we landed in Albert Lea, w e were met by some young boys handing us bottles of water and lots of locals which was really nice. We were able to fuel and do a quick stop to clean the bugs off the ariplane. We left quickly and were only on the ground 45 minutes. This gave us lots of time to fly the final leg of the race.

Finally en route to Alber Lea, MN

8th Leg - Albert Lea, Minnesota (AEL) to Menominnee, Michigan (MNM) (260) RACE ENDS......

We encounter some head winds after about 1 hour of flight. The winds had shifted and we coming from the North/Northeast, so we deicided to descend and fly lower. We made it to Menominnee way before sunset and we were greeted by Gene Coleman, a friend of Lenny & Pat Ohlsonn from Spruce Creek, as well as some of the other volunteers. Boy, is it cold here… there is a NE wind off the Lake and we were told that the temperature droped from 80 degrees to 60 degrees in a matter of 2 hours. BRRR!

We did not have a hotel reservation for this evening as we weren’t sure if we would be here. The hotels were all full. Fortunately, Gene and Donna Coleman offered us their home and we stayed on their loft along with team 35, Raven & Catherine from Central Missouri University. Lovely town house on the lake. We even saw a deer in the backyard!

Friday, June 23, 2006

Menominee Michigan

We slept in today.... We then went out for Breakfast at Wildflower Café, delicious fresh bagels, fruits and coffee. We then drove around the area to see Henes Park, 1 block from where we stayed last night. We saw lots of beautfiful Canadian geese, or honkers as the locals call them. Saw that the 2 condos in the same 6 unit complex were for sale, so made arrangements with the Realtor and saw them. Interesting, with great views on the lake.

We then had lunch with ‘the falcon chicks’ (Jan and Judy) at Pirates Cove, on the waterfront. Great Beer and very friendly people.

Later in the afternoon we were invited to Tour the Enstrom Helicopter Plant …This was really interesting. Very neat to see the vaious stages of fabrication of the helicopters. They make 90% of the parts used to build the helicopters there.

We then went to a cookout hosted by the Womens Club and Chamber of Commerce at the yacht club, we sat outside by the Marina. The food was provided by a local restaturant, The Serving Spoon, and it was excellent, so was the wine.

Ron and Edgar came in late at night to join us. We were looking forward to their arrival.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Menominee, Michigan

Got our score sheet this morning and then we went out to the airport to meet with the local girl scout troop and talk to them about aviation and the race. Each team was assigned a girl and we took them out to the planes. It was a lot of fun! Both the kids and the adults had a great time/

We then went to lunch at the local barbeque joint, but they only sold hotdogs and ere the hamburgers. It was very inexpensive. The burgers were $1.75 and the milkshakes are famous.

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