Air Race June 20 - Spearfish, Brookings, Holdbridge, La Hunta

This was a heavy day flying 3 legs.  We left the hotel at 5:30 and were off from Spearfish by sunrise @ 6:30.  We flew the first leg Spearfish to Brookings high with good tailwinds and turbulant.  About half way through the leg we lost the good winds and dropped down low to get out of the headwind.  There had been thunderstorm activitiy which dissipated as we expected.

We fueled up at Brookings and needed to depart to get in three legs in one day so dealt with headwinds flying quite low.  It was the longest leg, quite hot and tiring.  Brookings to Holdbridge took us into Nebraska on a route I'd never flown before and the hill country along the Missouri River was quite beautiful.  We fueled at Holdbridge and moved on towards La Junta, which, incidently is where Bob learned to fly the B25 - WWII.

We flew another low leg, again dealing with headwinds.  Bob has been following the tracker and wanted to know why we occasionally deviated slightly off course.  We were going around the tall towers (airplane catchers).  They're on the chart & IPad, however, visibility was murky and sometimes the flashers had burned out so we had to stay alert re the towers.  And he wanted to know why we climbed as we approached La Junta.  That was because La Junta is on higher ground and we had to climb for the airport from our low position.  The approach and timing procedures are rather complicated and deviating from the race' s printed approach draws a penalty.  Those trackers leave no secrets, but it's fascinating to us to see our exact course and how all the other racers are doing.

I've mentioned before how messed up the original race start was and there was a group of racers who didn't get off with the main body.  Those racers have finally gotten into the race, however, they're so far behind that they'll never finish by the deadline tomorrow noon.  Their deadline in Fayetteville has been extended to 5:00 PM and their race ends in Rawlins, WY at which time they'll proceed directly to Fayetteville for the windup festivities.  One more day of racing.   Good night.
Gene Nora