Day 1 - Acclimating to Life in the Right Seat Flying VFR to Concord...

The Air Race Classic is truly my VFR refresher course each year, and this year VFR begins way before the race. Sue flies daytime VFR, and so the flight to the Start will be flown under the same flight rules as the race. Good for me, because I'll be well broken in BEFORE the Start this year. In previous years, I'd use that IFR ticket to get out to the Start.



The view looking back on San Marcos HYI as we departed.

Leaving San Marcos TX (HYI), we flew off for the ARC, but with a slight detour down through Big Bend National Park, where Sue had many memories of camping and traveling in that area. So it was fun for her to see and give me a tour of this great place from the air. Amazing terrain and rock formations. Rugged and desolate too.



Sue is on her right base leg setting up to land at 6R6. 

Navigating out of HYI was a little more challenging than anticipated with some storms blowing up around us. If you go to flightaware.com and enter our tail # N450BA, you'll see an interesting flight path to our first FBO "picnic" lunch stop at Terrell 6R6. We met a couple border patrol helicopter pilots searching to rescue some Mexicans who were lost in this desolate and dry area. It drove home the point of how dangerous this area could be.


Big Bend peaks

Leaving 6R6, we angled down to overfly 89TE Lajitas International Airport and 3T9 Big Bend Ranch State Park and then on to El Paso TX (ELP). It was a hot and bumpy ride. At some point, I took the controls to begin to get a better feel for flying the Beech Sundowner from the right seat. It was time to renew valuable skills that have grown a bit rusty - very different vantage point and different instrumentation. No autopilot, which means more work to hold heading and altitude. So by the end of the race, my flying skills should be a whole lot sharper.

The Slowdowner was getting tossed a bit from summer heat thermals causing turbulence. As I was getting bounced about while flying and looking down and around to scan instruments positioned a bit different from my own plane and from an unfamiliar angle. Queasy stomach set in, and for the first time in 10+ years and 1400+ hours of flying, I lost my lunch. It was time to learn how to operate the SicSac instrument - aka barf bag. Fill, twist and tie off - and try not to cause your pilot to gag. Things got a bit better after that, especially by the time we were on the ground in El Paso.

Enjoy the pictures from around Big Bend National Park...



 

 

 

Half-Fast SlowDowners...What's in a name?

Well, how the hell do you come up a name like that? It started back in the 2012 Air Race Classic from Lake Havasu AZ to Batavia (Sporty's Pilot Shop) OH when I met another race team - Sue Jones and Bev Weintraub. They were flying Sue's 1981 Beech Sundowner (BE23), and it got dubbed the SlowDowner.

Also I have some friends in Iowa with a company called "Half-Fast Flying Adventures", and of course, the "Half-Fast" part of the name might have another connotation if said quickly and not carefully enunciated.

Move forward to last year's 2013 ARC when "Kool Katz With Attitude" Lynn Sykes and I flew to Cheyenne to meet up with Sue Jones flying her "SlowDowner" to Pasco WA. Sue was flying solo and looking for some company flying thru the mountains to the Start. While she was looking for assurance flying this route, she just lead the way and did a damned fine job navigating it all.

The Sundowner and the Cardinal on the ramp at Baker City OR for a fuel stop in 2013 on the way to Pasco.


The three of us had a blast flying my 1978 Cardinal Classic tandem with her Sundowner from there. It was my first time flying with another plane like that, and it was always fun talking with the air traffic folks about a plane flying 1-2 miles off one of our wings. Definitely a conversation starter with those folks.

So over the past year, I decided that I wanted to fly as co-pilot in the race for the first time, and in the process, I'd get time flying another type aircraft - low wing - and benefitting from another flyer's perspective...

After some discussions and then flying to Sue's place in TX last fall, we agreed to partner for the 2014 ARC. We talked names for awhile, and the co-pilot finally called it: Half-Fast SlowDowners. Everyone knows that Co-Pilot Minnetta is not the fastest person moving in the morning (or pretty much any time of day). Half-Fast or otherwise is another thing. SlowDowner is a nice counterpoint, eh?