Greetings From Atlantic, Iowa!!!

Bee has shared our great news in an earlier blog. We were first to arrive at the finish line. One other plane made it in about 6 hours later. Thanks to Capt. Bob for the great weather information and analysis, we were able to be the first to land at Jacksonville, Illinois.

We were cautiously looking at a convective sigmet between Sparta and Jacksonville that afternoon. We all studied the situation carefully and decided to go for it, watching the storm on the scope in the cockpit. As predicted, the system broke up and we were able to fly direct with no problem. The majority of the planes stayed behind, but six of the other contestants did arrive at Jacksonville in the evening.

Our team realized that with good weather analysis, an early start and the great performance of the Diamond Star, we could possibly be the first ones to Racine, Wisconsin and, if our luck and good planning paid off, the first to the finish line in Atlantic, Iowa…. And it worked!!! What a feeling!!!!

We have a great team with divided duties but everyone cross-checking the other. The efficiency of the cockpit resource management paid big dividends. We may or may not win the race, but we were the first plane to arrive at the terminus. To us, this is an incredible accomplishment.

Our apologies to family, friends, sponsor and supporters for the inability to track our flight on Flight Aware as we originally promised. We quickly realized that we would lose our competitive advantage by filing a flight plan, which would enter our N number “into the system,” thus engaging the tracking feature. We made a choice and, as much as we wanted everyone to track our progress, it was more important to give ourselves every advantage in this race. By filing a flight plan or using flight following, we would run the risk of being diverted off our course, losing valuable
time. And, with weather systems popping up throughout the Midwest, we realized that the sooner we reached our destinations, the better chance we had in continuing to move forward and not being “grounded,” which was the case with the majority of Air Race Classic teams.

And it paid off big time!!!! So we are going to be busy blogging and posting photos today and tomorrow to tell our story…… more later.

Thanks to all of you for your support!

Best - Susan King
2009 Wings of Dreams Team