A good day!

Photos from today are in the blog entry below this one.

We woke up early this morning and headed to Albuquerque for the last leg of our flight out to the race start in Prescott. It was a beautiful calm sunny morning, but the smoke from the wildfires was clearly visible up in the mountains above the city.

Before we left, we thought we'd have one last go at getting a mechanic to help us, and we were very fortunate to get hold of Joel Stribling from Bode Aviation. What a great guy! He came and looked at the cowl flap situation, and was able to put together a stable fix for the issue so that we can now open and close them! As mentioned yesterday, this is quite a big deal for the race because if left closed, the engine can overheat, but if left open, they create drag and slow the airplane down. We were very relieved and happy, and grateful to Joel for his help!

We set off mid morning. Take off at high elevation airports like Albuquerque (which is at about 5500 feet) is challenging, especially when the airplane is fully loaded with full fuel. The density altitude is high, and plane performance suffers. You have to lean the engine even on the ground because the air is so thin, and you need a lot of runway to get up enough speed, and then once airborne your climb speed is not what you might be used to. Our first stop was to overfly Los Lunas, a little airport about 20 miles down the valley which is another flyby on the route, and then we climbed to 9500 feet and headed up to the high desert to Arizona, passing by Sedona on our way. It's amazing flying these remote areas, and it really does feel like the surface of the moon sometimes. You occasionally see little homesteads at the end of 20 mile long dirt tracks, with no other sign of human habitation from horizon to horizon, and you think - who could possibly live there? and what do they do there? The rock formations were strange and beautiful, and we even flew over a lava field.

Approaching Prescott, we flew over the last mountain range and descended into the valley, landing on runway 8. And there were all the race planes, lined up in rows on the North and South ramps! We taxied to our allotted spot, right next to Alicia and Heather (31) and behind Mary and Juliet (15). We felt a great sense of accomplishment for having flown all the way from New Jersey to Arizona!

The rest of the afternoon passed in greeting old friends; getting the airplane washed and waxed by some lovely aviation mechanics students from Michigan; and completing our pilot credential checks and airplane documentation checks. We had dinner with about 14 racers in downtown Prescott at a brewery, right across from the town square where live music was playing and people had brought lawn chairs and picnics.

By the end of the night our handicap speeds had been released. The speed that we have to beat is 165.272 miles per hour, which is 143.617 knots. Our final score will reflect our average speed on each leg and overall against this number.