Day 1: KAIA to KGBD to KBGD

START YOUR ENGINES! (brumm...brummm...brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......put put.pputtt....brrrr....)

The ladies (well, most of them) departed Alliance, Nebraska today at noon mountain time (please dis-reguard my previous mis-calculation of mountain time...I guess I'm on my own "Robin" Mountain time!) There are a few ladies that have not left...and I'm not sure if they are still going to compete or not. (some may have had maintenance issues)

Say hello to two friendly face...Lauren Dawson (left) and myself (right). Lauren and I competed in the Air Race Classic in 2007. We went out to Great Bend to cheer the KSU ladies on and also help with the timing line. We had a wonderful trip and were glad to lend our support and time to such a fun event.

And here it is...the 2011 KSU ARC Team's FIRST flyby!

The thrill, excitement, and pure craziness...all in one flyby...flying a couple hundred feet, buzzing the runway at full throttle....is just a day in the life of an air race classic pilot! And imagine....flying one direction with traffic taking off the opposite direction....a well coordinated and absolutely crazy, yet remarkably safely executed procedure. It's amazing. The ladies preformed excellently and it was fun to watch!

Lauren and Robin with the stop chair, Trish--who was kind enough to let us fly her baby to see our KSU ladies!! We cannot thank you enough for giving us this opportunity!

Here we all are...quick pic! Left to right:

Megan, Nicole, Lauren, Robin

And the ramp filled up rather quickly....

And here they are, after flying the timing line...can you see those smiles?! I think they had a blast!

OR....it could be bacause of their awesome fans...

Megan's younger brother and mom, in addition to Nicole, Megan, and Jack: 

The ladies flew a great first leg...and decided to fly leg #2 which was from Great Bend to Borger, Texas. They will stay overnight in Texas and re-assess the weather in the morning, hoping to get good weather and tail winds. Until then, goodnight everyone!

Banquet

This is an image of Kathy Walton in I she has flown in over 20 races. She was sharing stories with me about previous races and telling me all about the racers. We actually met her and her partner at Women in Aviation. They were manning the booth for the Air Race Classic. Her partner has flown in 32 Air Race Classics. I am so glad I got the chance to meet these seasoned racers.

Next is a picture of our Mama Birds. They are super sweet and super helpful. We couldn't have got better mentors for this race. They were willing to share any and all information with us that pertained to the race.

Here is Janet Yoder from Wichita. She is Classic 31. She was being awarded for racing in over 25 races. Go Janet.

Here is a picture of the Pre Takeoff Banquet. We had a fabulous meal of salad, chicken, with cheesecake and chocolate cake.

Here is a picture of us with the other collegiate teams after the banquet. Minus myself. A tall girl from Indiana cut me out of the picture :( BOOOO INDIANA..... just kidding they were super nice. We ate breakfast with them on morning.

BBQ and Stories

Yesterday after our inspection we spent the afternoon trying ot update our blog. We weren't able to figure it out so we had Robin help us. Thanks again Robin!! Obviously we have worked out the bugs and are trying our best to do it on our own.

One of the ladies who previously flew in the Air Race Classic is now writing a book about all of the interesting women pilots she has met over the years. She interview us yesterday for about an hour and she listened to our stories about how we came to love aviation. As we were being interviewed we started to gain an audience and soon even more questions were asked by other racers. We really didn't think we were that interesting, but they had a blast none the less. She said we will be in her book, so we will be looking forward to that in the next year or so.

Megan was having problems connecting to the internet on her iPad so we had a courtesy driver take us to an AT & T store in the same mall as the childrens museum. The nice women who took us to the store was originally from France, but is now living in Iowa City, Iowa married to her husband of ten years. She works in a laboratory studying cures for HPV virus (or Cervical Cancer). It has been extremely interesting listening to all of the stories from each individual we have met.

Luckily after our trip to the mall we were able to fix the iPad problem and now we have 3G network anywhere.

After our interview and our trip to the mall we went to the Hanger Barbeque and Dance. Here we ate delicious pulled pork, beans, corn bread, and some giant cookies. At the barbeque we sat with a few of the other college students we had just met. Pictured above are Embry Riddle Daytona, Embry Riddle Prescott, and Purdue. At the barbeque only a few women were dancing. One being one of our Mama Birds (the ladies who have been helping us with questions about the race). It was cute to watch.

Anyone have a guess what this is? We had no clue. We saw this as we were driving to the barbeque. Because it was sprinkling, these people were riding their low rider bicycles down the street with fiberglass covers. This was a sight to see.

Here are more pictures of the barbecue. On the left is Embry Riddle Prescott. And to the right of us is Embry Riddle Daytona.

We are both still very excited and cannot wait for the race to start. T minus 2 days.

We will post about the banquet sometime tommorow. It is Midnight and we have an All Racers Briefing to be at in the morning to go over Flyby procedures.

The trip: KSLN to KIOW

As stated earlier today, the ladies made it safely to Iowa City, Iowa. What adventures have they encountered already? They sent Robin an email with LOTS of pictures and captions…so here we go:

They have had lots of support and encouragement from their colleagues:

Go Meg! Lots of support from friends in the residence halls. They cut out our newspaper article pictures and posted them on Megan's door.











Megan and Nicole...posing for a quick picture before departing. GO TEAM!
(NOTE: they will be called "Classic 30" druing the race. Their tail number: N810KS will not be used while they are actually competing in the race.)

 

Our wonderful maintenance crew put our names on the plane so we would know which plane is ours ... Just kidding.... Now we don’t have to fight over where to sit. Megan is practicing for her CFI in the right seat.

Our first stop on our way to Iowa City was Manhattan (MHK). We took the courtesy car and went to grab Chipolte before our leg to Iowa city or KIOW. We stopped to change and when in the bathroom: Nicole, being the blonde that she is, put her clothes in the sink while she was changing failing to notice that it was an automatic water sink. So her shorts were sopping wet. Good job Nicole!

We are off!

The flight to Manhattan Nicole flew the plane. It was hot on our way to Manhattan and after lunch we were glad to climb up to 4,500 where is was a little cooler.

Below is a picture of a feature the G1000 has called a "Fuel Ring". We set this feature for 45 minute fuel reserve. This means that we can fly anywhere within this given ring (at our current speed, altitude, winds, etc) without running out of fuel.There are a few "rings" below. the most outer ring is when we run out of fuel...we never want to get there. The inner-dotted ring is when we hit that 45 minute reserve, and by that point, if something were to happen, we would want to start on our alternate plans to stop and get fuel.

Some awesome scenery in Iowa... Megan refers to them as "mossy lakes"

Megan is coming in for a landing on Runway 12 in Iowa City. There were several planes in the pattern when we came in. There is not a control tower at this airport, so each aircraft is responsible for keeping visual separation from each other...all part of the fun!

The trip was uneventfull, we didn't even see any other aircraft until we were about 10 miles out from Iowa City. As we got closer to Iowa the terrain started getting greener and there were a lots of hills, trees, and small ponds to observe. Megan flew from the right seat. She has only just begun flying from there so her altitude was hit and miss. Learning to fly from the right seat should be interesting.

Once we got on the ground at Iowa City, we were completly lost. Since neither of us has raced before we weren't sure what to do. But luckily there were lots of very nice volunteers to direct us in the right direction. Where we then parked the plane and both of us tied it down for the day.

While we were trying to figure out how to register and check in we were asked if we could complete our handicapp flight early. (Pretty much just 10 minutes after we landed). So Megan, being the pilot was debriefed on what she would do in the air. While both Nicole and Megan wipped most of the bugs off of the plane (sorry Mike we missed the bug free airspace)!!! Once Megan was up in the air she climbed up to 4,500 ft MSL, to simulate a density altitude of 6,000 ft. Once there she flew four different heading. 360, 90, 270, and 180. She had a check pilot in the aircraft with her to write down her ground speed so they could assign our aircraft a handicap. What this means is that we will have to fly our aircraft at an airspeed faster then our handicapp to earn more points. The handicapp flight went well and we are waiting to see wether we will have to fly again or not. If we don't our aircraft is all ready to go for the race. Our inspections are done, we are checked in, our airplane is rewashed, and we are ready to begin this awesome adventure!!!

Our Maintenance Inspection- They put paint on the nuts and bolts to make sure we do not modify the engine.

Our plan under inspection- They had trouble putting the engine cowling put back on our airplane this morning. Dont worry we double checked all the nuts and bolts and we are good to go.

We also met some of the other racers. One that we met is is Janet Yoder and her copilot Anne! They are super nice. They are Classic 29. Additionally, Janet was Robin and Niki's Mama Bird (to help them through their first race!)

While putting the plane back after inspection we needed help pushing it back into the grass. We got help from a gentleman that worked for a news station and Iowa. And again we were interviewed. It will be on the news in Iowa tonight at 6 and 10 CBS and FOX. We keep saying the cameras follow us.

After inspections, we got to go to the Iowa City Childrens Museum.

Megan at the Iowa City Childrens Museum Take Flight Exhibit. She was trying to fly the Wright Brothers Plane. She managed to land it three times, while Nicole crashed all 4 times. Don't worry, we are well qualified...our airplane doesn't maneuver quite like the Wright Brothers Plane!

Nicole and Richard Picture

Nicole mentioned in her post the other day a person she wanted to take flying....here he is!!

Nicole and Richard

I'm sure Nicole will have plenty of exciting adventures to share when she returns...and takes him on that flight!

Pre Race Planning: Updating Maps

Pre-Race Preparation. Megan sent Robin a few pictures. Here is a collaborative post including some of those images.

Nicole and I also flew on a cross country together. We went to Columbia Missouri. Here are a couple pictures from that practice flight.

Preparing to depart for Salina:

Pre-Race planning is exciting! There are sectionals (maps) to get, update, and plan the route on. Additionally, becoming familiar with the route, terrain, airspace, and obstacles along the route are some of the most exciting parts of planning....not to mention getting a sneak peak at other areas of the country that these ladies have never been to is all part of the fun.

Here are a few pictures from the process:

Here we finished updating the Dallas Ft. Worth Sectional chart

Megan updating a chart:

Nicole: Holding all the charts....

Trip Planning.....how many sectionals does one leg of the race cover!?

Entire Route....

(the sectionals are front to back...

so part of the trip is on the back side...but still......

a lot of work to plan! great job ladies!)

Updating charts...this one is one from South Dakota. The ladies went through to add any additional towers or obstacles that were built since the sectionals were published. They had to know how to read latitude/longitude and where to put the obstacle. One of the many ways they have gotten to use every bit of flight training they have had thus far.

The gentleman in the AHP shirt is Jack. Hello Jack! Thanks for helping the ladies update the sectionals!!

And here is a picture of a map that did NOT need updated...they were excited about this one! Newly published map means no updates!

The duo is hard at work updating sectionals:

Look at this smile....she sees the FINISH LINE: Mobile, Alabama

Now, imagine the smile Nicole will have on her face when she gets there :  )

The team plans to depart KSLN (Salina, KS) on Friday, June 17, 2011. Departure time is yet to be determined based on weather and winds. The team will not have to make any fuel stops from KSLN to the Starting line in Iowa City, Iowa. Their initial flight will take about 3 hours and they will cover just over 300 Nautical Miles. Stay tuned for more pictures and updates!

Pre Race Pictures

Taking a look at the destinations:

Our Awesome Wildcat!

Having fun...I mean-Working Hard

(Nicole and Megan)

In the KSU Hangar:

Megan and Nicole Pics

Megan and I met Freshman year at orientation. Ever since we have become really good friends. We spend countless hours studying together and are involved in many of the same clubs on campus.




Megan and I at Trunk or Treat. This is sponsored by Women in Aviation every year. We all decorate our trunks and provide a safe way for kids to trick or treat.

This was Megan and I at the Women in Aviation Conference in Florida. We were walking around at Downtown Disney at night.

In this photo we are on the flight to Reno for the Women in Aviation conference.

Us on the Buzzlightyear ride at Disney World in Florida.

This is us at Trunk or Treat. It got moved inside because of rain.