This weekend we flew to Lake Havasu to try to complete our handicap flight. This is where we fly the plane at full power with an Air Race handicap pilot to determine what our average true airspeed is... this is the speed we'll be racing against. We left for Lake Havasu before 6:30am on Saturday hoping for calm winds. To get an accurate speed, the winds aloft have to be less than 10 knots and there can't be any turbulence. Unfortunately the winds were already above 10 knots at the altitude we do the handicap at, and surface winds were over 20. So after landing, we went to breakfast with Donna, the stop chair for Lake Havasu and the woman that we would have done the handicap with. We had a great time with her. After that, we flew the entire first leg of the race - Lake Havasu to Gallup, NM - for practice.
At 11am, the winds were already gusting to the 35 knots in Gallup! And of course we had the typical Arizona turbulence the entire way. After landing and getting sandblasted by winds on the ramp, we got the fuel tanks topped off and took off for Prescott. On the way, we flew over Meteor Crater, a familiar sight that we often see on cross-countries.
Overall we had a good flight, logged 6.0 hours of flight time together, and it got us even more excited for the race to start. Today we flew again - this time to Sedona.
The countdown continues! We leave for the start this Friday EARLY morning so that we can attempt the handicap flight again once we get there.
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