The Norman Transcript
June 25, 2007 08:50 am
—
Day 4
Hi to all from Canada,
We have had a great time here in New Brunswick since we arrived on
Thursday. Our plane is sitting at the airport waiting for our departure
Monday(tomorrow) morning.
The local Ninety-Nines have made our stay very memorable. Saint John is
on the Bay of Fundy and the tide here is the highest in the world. They
have a 28 -36 Foot tide depending on the time of year. We took a jet boat
ride over the rapids and every inch of us got soaked. This is in spite of
full rain suits.
We drove up the coast to St. Martins yesterday and walked and drove
along the Fundy Trail. Lots of fog and weather here since it is right on
the ocean.
Tonight is the closing banquet. We have made a lot of friends and I
certainly want to fly the race again next year.
We leave for Montana first thing in the morning. I will keep you up to
date on the flight across Canada. We will clear customs at Sault ST.
Marie in Michigan.
Margie
Day 3
We arrived in Saint John, New Brunswick at 4pm Oklahoma Time. This is a
day earlier than we had planned but the weather was good so we decided to
continue. We flew three legs today. Starting in Elmira, New York about
8am we discovered that most of the racers were long gone. They are an
early bunch of women.
We flew over upstate New York. So much different than New York City.
No wonder people speak so fondly of upstate. The beautiful rolling hills
continued across the state boarder into our next stop Burlington, VT.
Burlington is on Lake Champlain called one of the great lakes at one time.
It is very deep and has plenty of water unlike Lake Superior.
We didn't think the landscape could get any more beautiful but Vermont
and New Hampshire are breath taking. We were trying to imagine how it
must look in the fall,
More in a minute.
Margie
Hello again,
I'm having trouble getting dropped from the internet so I will
write several short messages.
We are on our way to Bangor, ME. They pronounce it Bang Gore and it is
a very busy airport. We did our timing run at Pittsfield and then landed
at Bang Gore. There is a lot of commercial traffic and since we have a
war going on, there is a lot of national guard traffic as well,
We fueled up and flew back to Pittsfield for our timing run. We then
headed for Canada. We dodged a few light showers and when we broke out we
were in severe sunshine in New Brunsfield. Saint John is right on the
ocean and we did our timing run over the breakwater between an island and
the mainland. I hope the timers were there...all we could see was ocean.
Saint John airport is very quiet...... not like the other airports we
have been talking to. The beautiful green hills and mountains are
replaced by lakes and green wetlands and the ocean to the East.
A group of Canadian gals were here to greet us. Four Customs officials
were here to process us in less than 10 minutes. We washed our plane,
waxed her and put a cover on her. We won't see her until Monday morning
when we leave.
We rented a bright blue Mustang and were off to find our hotel. After
2600 miles we were never lost but we got lost trying to find our downtown
hotel. A nice Canadian showed us the way.
The hotel is on the Bay of Fundi (remember your grade school geography
lesson?) We plan to do a lot of walking if our legs remember how to
walk after three days of sitting in an airplane.
I will keep writing emails to let you all know what we are doing and if
we get any awards. (don't hold you breath)
Margie and Linda
Day 2:
Hello Aviations enthusiasts,
The sun was setting behind the mountain tonight as we were busy
washing all the bugs off the plane and putting polish on the leading
edges. We arrived here at Elmira, NY about 8:10 p.m. It has been a long
day but we made good time and pushed on as far as we could.
We rushed out this morning to the airport at Jefferson City, MO only
to find that we were one of the last to leave at 8 a.m. These gals get up
really early and take off as soon as the sun comes up. We didn't stop
for breakfast so as soon as we were on our way..... we pull out all the
food in our plane. Not very well balanced but nuts and dried fruit and
water keep the hunger pangs away.
Our first leg took us to Bowling Green, KY where the locals again
put out the red carpet for the racers. Here was some real food.... a
cook out at the FBO (fixed base operator). This is the place that sells
fuel at the airport.
We didn't linger long as soon we were off for Lewisburg, WV. Winds
not as good for us this second leg.
When we left Missouri the small hills were green and rolling but as
we fly east the trees and hills become a major part of the landscape
below. Some towns seem to have a hard time finding a flat open place for
an airport. In fact Chester, IL has their airport across the river in Missouri on the flat
river bed.
The changing landscape is beautiful and much different that the plains
of Oklahoma.
We take turns flying the plane. We must open a flight plan on the
ground and the flood of calls has really overloaded flight service.
Our stop in Lewisburg WV was short and we took off for Elmira, NY.
We flew the state line between West Virginia and Virginia. The mountains
are covered with strip mines. They are mining soft coal and when they
are done they plant it with grass. Makes for a very interesting
landscape.
We crossed State College, PA and were on to Elmira. The state of Penn
is very lovely from the air.
We have done three legs both days. About 7 hours in the plane each
day. We do NOT have auto pilot and it all has to be flown by hand.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Margie
Hello to all,
We have had a great and long first day. The weather was on our side today and all the thunderstorms which have been with us for months had passed.
We stayed at the hotel in OKC last night so we could get up and make the 6 a.m. roll call. Breakfast was served at 5:45 a.m. and we were on our way to the airport at 6:30 a.m.. We received a weather briefing at breakfast and last minute instructions.
The flight must be VFR ( visual flight rules). Which means no flight in clouds or bad weather. We are required to file a flight plan for each leg of the race. This must be done on the ground and it must be opened on the ground. We are not allowed to call flight service from the air.
The weather man filed all the plans and opened them from the tower as we took off. This saved us lots of time in trying to get through to flight service by telephone. We took off at 8:53 a.m. The takeoff went smoothly with a plane every minute.
Our first leg took us to McCook, Neb., 2 hours and 10 minutes. We are happy with our speed doing better than our handicap. The airport at McCook looked like it was having an air show with all the planes flying in and taking off. They had sandwiches and cookies for us and lots of cold bottled water. We spent an hour on the ground and then filed flight plans for the second leg.
Enough for this e-mail.
More to follow.
Margie
Hello again,
Taking off from McCook, Neb. We headed east with a heading of 080*. The plains of Nebr. are soft and rolling and green. Very lovely countryside. We passed to the North of Lincoln and Omaha, staying out of their airspace.
We are using the common air to air frequency to talk to each other. The planes ahead of us will pass the weather back to the planes following. I keep a log on my clipboard of all the important data. Like did we file and open a flight plan. The time off.
I need to tell you how they get the time for each airplane. After we take off we fly back around the airport and fly over a timing line. This is different at each airport and we are given instructions ahead of time. We get our wheels retracted and get our speed up before we pass over the timing line at 200 ft AGL. (above ground level) The time starts at this point and continues until we fly over the timing line at the next stop. Then each leg is added together and this will be the time for our race.
We keep the figures and hope the timers on the ground keep the figures for us. We compare figures at the end to see what our score is.
We landed at Dennison, Iowa for our next stop. The townspeople all come out to see all the activity at their otherwise quiet little airport. The had a hot meal for us and lots of water.
We stayed here for several hours and then flew south for Jefferson City, Mo. Thirty-five planes are here for the night. Things were very busy getting in to the airport. Their hospitality is great. People are here to drive us into town to the hotel.
We are tired. Over seven hours in the air. We take turns flying and have plenty of food and water in the plane.
Margie and Linda
• Margie Richison says she keeps reinventing herself
By Michelle Sutherlin
For The Transcript
The retired registered nurse, retired flight instructor and museum trustee has a lot of experience in a lot of things. But when she hits the runway today as she participates in the 31st annual Air Race Classic she will rely on her decades of experience as a pilot.
Richison, of Norman, will compete in the 2,300-mile race with fellow pilot and friend Linda Marshall today as they take off at 8 a.m. in Marshall’s Piper Arrow.
The race begins in Oklahoma City at Wiley Post Airport and ends in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, on Friday (weather permitting) after stops in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, New York, Vermont and Maine. There will be 46 planes with two pilots each taking off in one-minute intervals, Richison said.
Richison said this is the second year she has competed in the Air Race Classic, but she has been flying for years. She first received her pilot’s license as a high school student because her dad had a plane.
Only stopping for a while to have a family, Richison has been flying since. She was a registered nurse for 20 years before retiring, then became a flight instructor at the University of Oklahoma Department of Aviation.
Now Richison is on the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Women Pilots in Oklahoma City.
“I don’t know what I am going to do when I grow up,” she said.
Richison and fellow pilot Marshall, who is from Montana, are friends through the International Order of Women Pilots, or the 99. The group, which started with 99 of the 117 licensed women pilots in 1929, has grown to 5,400 members, she said.
The air race started in 1929, then called the All Woman’s Air Derby or the All Women’s Cross Country Air Race. Richison said famous Oklahoman and pilot Will Rogers nicknamed the race the Powder Puff Derby.
Richison said women of all ages will fly in the race, including one woman who is 86 and another who is 91.
The race is a timed speed race where pilots are given a handicap based on the speed of their plane. Richison said the object of the race is to beat your handicap, so even the person with the slowest plane could win.
“I love flying,” Richison said. “It’s just wonderful — the freedom. You feel like a bird looking down on the earth.”
Richison and her husband, Randy, own two planes, a Cirrus and a Piper Warrior, she said. Her husband also flies, but will be cheering her on in this race from home. Their planes are based in Norman at Max Westheimer.
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