Handicap Flight….

On Sunday, May 30th Denise Waters from ARC arrived at PTW 5:45pm to fly the handicap flight with Ethel. Since the plane is only carrying Ethel and me during the race Denise took my spot in the plane for this flight. After a briefing and updating us on some additional ARC information the handicap flight began at about 7:15pm and they landed at 7:50pm. Things went smoothly and we are waiting for our handicap from Denise and the ARC team. I have to stress this point when talking about the Air Race Classic organization. They are a volunteer organization that amazes me as they take us through the various stages of preparation to get us to Fort Myers to start the race. Denise is the ARC Director of Airplanes and it was great to finally meet her after e-mailing her so often in the past couple of weeks. For our flying friends…Denise flies a Grumman Tiger and she flew in from Latrobe, PA after completely a handicap flight there earlier on Sunday. Once she was finished with us she was flying home to New York. Imagine doing this type of volunteer work in your spare time.

Ethel and I got some time to fly together on Monday, May 31st for a couple of hours to practice our racing techniques. For those who haven’t flown full throttle for long periods of time it is an interesting experience. Configuring the plane to fly straight and level when all she wants to do is climb proves to be a challenge as we get comfortable in the cockpit. Just simple things as cockpit organization are going to be tough as we plan to be in the plane for four straight days.
We are now patiently waiting for the plane to go in for its 100 hour inspection. Stay tuned for more information.