Thursday June 26

Our third day of flying and we didn't advance much. We hung around at Frankfort KY airport waiting for the weather to improve at the Franklin PA airport, which it was slow to do. We got to Frankfort airport at 6:15am and finally took off around 9:30am. We got just as confused with these two similar-named airports. We decided we should have gotten the weather before we left the motel. We could have slept in a little. It was a dicey ride with low visibility under the clouds and too many clouds under us at altitude. We split the difference and came down in a hole in the clouds about 60 miles out. The remainder of the ride was bumpy but visibility was good and we found the airport with no trouble. It sits on top of a mountain. The fly by is always exciting. This one was done 400' above the ground. We remember to put on all our lights, call in 10 miles out, 5 miles out and 1 mile out with our classic number, saying we are continuing or landing, and to push the button on the stop watch as we cross the timing line. At our speed this all takes place in less than three minutes.. We are down to flyby altitude about three miles out and then we go screaming down the flyby line. The call outs tell the timers and anyone else in the vicinity that we are coming in and where we are. We only did this once today at Franklin PA. We improved our technique enormously since our first flyby in Miles City Montana. We waited all day for the weather at the Saratoga Springs airport to improve, which it never did. Last night three airplanes were overnight in Decatur Illinois, three were overnight in Franklin and 27 of us were overnight in Frankfort KY. We are spread out again tonight, but the numbers are not posted yet on the www.airraceclassic.org site. We are not comfortable flying in certain weather and we are always surprised when airplanes depart in these conditions. But each of us has our personal minimums. We had a lovely dinner with Alison and Linda here at the hotel, and we are back in our room already planning tomorrow's departure time.