Linda flew the last leg from El Dorado to Mobile today. Some racers were worried about forecast IFR conditions on route, and thunderstorms arriving in Mobile by 2pm, but it seemed to us that the en route conditions were just a little ground fog that would burn off by 10am. We left around 1030am, just ahead of the single scheduled flight that leaves El Dorado for Memphis every day. It was already very hot. We did the flyby to runway 17 then zoomed off to the east heading for Mobile. This was one of the longer legs at 280nm (about 2 hours at race speed), but was very pretty country that we got to see in some detail from our relatively low altitude. We called some of the uncontrolled airports we passed over en route to position report and monitor traffic. Again, drinking a lot of water was really important with all the air vents closed! The end of the route was through Mobile controlled airspace, but just as in Oklahoma city the controllers knew we were coming and were ready for us, and very accommodating. So about 30 miles out we called Mobile approach, who gave us a transponder code and we entered their airspace; then there was some switching back and forth with Mobile downtown Tower to make our 20, 10 and 5nm position reports, then about 10 miles out Approach cleared us to switch over to Mobile Tower. The Tower controller was magnificent! He had women pilots shooting all over the place in different directions at full speed, some doing their flybys, others vectoring to cool off their engines or come around to land, and even though he was working flat out and at double speed, he never lost his cool and managed to keep the whole situation under control. In fact he did better than me - I was trying to run two radio frequencies simultaneously, ignore the continual warning beep indicating that the right tank was running low on fuel, watch for traffic, and hear above the rising level of happy excitement from the rest of our crew in the airplane, and allegedly at one point I may have punched Linda (the pilot!) in the arm a little too hard as I tried to get everyone to shut up...! Sorry Linda! The controller cleared us for our flyby, which went very well, then we shot up and over the Mobile Bay to cool down. It was very pretty flying over the bay and looking back over the city. We came back around and were cleared to land on 18. Wheels down, and another race accomplished!!
We taxied to the Mobile ramp, tied down, removed all our belongings from the plane per race rules, patted it, and thanked it for being such a good race plane. Our rental car was driven right up to the plane, so all we had to do was pack it up and we were ready to go to the hotel downtown. Checked in to our two rooms, hooked up with Mary and Rose, and went out for a late lunch (we were starving!). Then back to the hotel for the meltdown party and to hang out with the other racers and exchange stories.
Each race is different, and for all of us this will be distinguished as a very difficult weather race. For team Cool Beans, this will also be memorable for the amount of en route maintenance we had to do - it was like a very expensive maintenance trip really! But always there's the beautiful scenery, meeting up again with old friends, and of course awesome flying day in and day out. The race isn't over yet. We still have a handicap flight to do; scores to add up; and we find out how we did at the banquet on Sunday night; and then finally we have to fly all the way back to PA on Monday! Stay tuned.
