Our lovely race plane N222VW has been giving us some last minute headaches. The first was an autopilot issue that was fixed by Wayne at Aircraft And Avionics Sales at Harrisburg Capital City. The second, which we discovered this weekend when we went to retrieve the plane from Harrisburg, was the right vacuum pump which failed. Because of high winds all day today, Linda flew to South Jersey Regional at 6am this morning to pick Alison up and fly her over there before the winds really kicked up, and Alison returned N222VW back to South Jersey and left it for Billy at BPAir. Hopefully he'll be able to replace the vacuum pump in time for us to leave on Wednesday as planned!
Just in case it doesn't work out, we've also been in touch with Race Central about a backup plan, which is to fly Linda's C182 N151BS. Normally it wouldn't be possible to change planes this late in the day, but N151BS is already prequalified for this year's race, because Mary Gibb's team had planned to race it. Unfortunately the team had to withdraw because Mary had an ankle injury, but it does mean that we could use the plane if N222VW doesn't come through. Linda and Mary Wunder flew the handicap flight late last night, so we're good to go.
So, we have a choice, and hope to make a final decision which plane we are taking by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest! Then, on Wednesday we launch for the race start in Prescott Arizona!!
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