2010 NW Section Meeting

Gene Nora Jessen and BJ Carter are the proud new owners of a Musketeer Super III N98339. They are participating in the Air Race Classic with their new bird. The crew includes Patty Mitchell and they call themselves the 3 Musketeers.

From Gene Nora-Monday, June 20th
We made it to Alliance, Nebraska. We are tied down and tucked in at the Days Inn. About 20 planes made it in before we left the airport. Many went at least partly IFR. We took a nap at Columbus and fueled. We then went on to Alliance. Five and a half hours flying. Wednesday is the start of the race at noon. We will go to Great Bend, Kansas then on to Norman.
Monday June 20
We are in Iowa City, IA in a lovely hotel overlooking the U of I campus whose colors are black and gold - the same as the U of Idaho. Most of the 30,000 students are gone with summer school now in session. Our view overlooks a gathering area with music and outrageous garb. There's a steady f;low of small children playing in the fountain.
The trip in from Idaho was uneventful - about ten hours of flying. We came up against thunderstorms and RON'd (remained overnight) at Rawlins, WY with the air quite rough and windy, which blew all night. The forecast was ominous with lows and lines of thunderstorms all over the place, but it dissipated and we were able to get into Iowa City Friday evening prior to the Sat. noon deadline after swinging by Norfolk, NE to photograph Bob's home town Norfolk. The Canadian team finally arrived Sat. evening having had difficulty crossing "the Rocks" (which we call the Rockies) and a Florida team also arrived late but were "forgiven" their tardiness. Teams in the midwest had the worst problems with weather.
Each of the 50 airplanes were to fly a handicap flight to establish an official handicap for their specific airplane. The formula is quite complicated, but we're looking for full throttle, top speed for each individual aircraft. We had established 131.5 mph ourselves coming in but that's not official. We were at the airport at 5:30 AM for our handicap flight with a race official but it must be flown in still air and by the time the fog burned off there was wind . We tried again Sat. evening but too much vertical lift. We and others might fly the race without an official handicap and establish it at the end.
We sat in safety meetings yesterday and will again today. We have 100 pilots, about a quarter whom haven't raced before. The safety rules are quite strict and the race has never had a serious accident. We passed the aircraft inspection though it was not uneventful. We had the white tail light out (repaired) though the wing tip lights were okay. The strobes were out with an electrical problem. Everything else was okay.
We're eager to start the race tomorrow, however the forecast is bad for thundertorms and tornadoes, if you've happened to watch the weather channel, the majority of it to the north along our route.
Later - Since we obviously aren't going to get out of here to the north and northwest along the race route, the word now is that there is no race out of Iowas City and the northern stops are being abandoned. We are now to get ourselves over to Alliance, NE by noon tomorrow ready to complete the race starting from there Wednesday morning along the rest of the pre-established route - watching for the weather window of opportunity. Stay tuned. Gene Nora, Patty, & BJ

From BJ-June 22nd
We are getting ready to start the race-noon is the race start. We will go from Alliance, Ne-Great Bend, Kansas-Borger, Tx and maybe to Norman, Ok today. It is already exciting seeing most of the planes make it to Alliance-weather problems for others. The start should be exciting as all of the planes line up and take off one right after the other and then all return to the airport and do a race flyby in the air to start the clock. Of course, not to the exact same spot as the take off. We are number 2 to take off hence the name CLASSIC 2. Patty Mitchell has a facebook site with Arc Info. Patty is the co-pilot and Gene Nora is the pilot. Myself-I have the title of flight engineer which so far has means pass up the cheese sticks and charts. Is this fun? You must experience this.