The days are moving soooo quickly and I only have three days to get everything together. My hsuband washed and waxed the plane, and we are ready to attach the numbers which are Racer #42 on both sides of the tail section. I cleaned out a lot of non essential items out of the plane but there are so many heavy items that needs to go back in, logbooks (plane & Pilot) then portable tiedowns they weight at least 15 pounds, the Race book with official stuff in it, our expandable file with each race stop diagram for the airports, fuel slips, maintanence slips in case something needs fixing enroute. It seems the plane is a piece of cake compared to Laurie's tasks right now. Laurie is trying to get ready for the wedding, get the paper charts, download a new app for her i-pad, get me a room in Lafayette, maybe make excuses why we need to leave Sat. night instead of Sunday morning if the weather will be crummy. It is only 1.5 hours from Lafayette to Iowa City.

On Friday I will be flying solo to Lafayette and it should take about 3.5 hours to get there. I am praying the weather will be decent for the takeoff and landing, inbetween it can be crappy, but would like to have blue skies.

Once I get to Lafayette we need to get the race route on the paper charts just in case all the electronic stuff goes south on us, you just never know when you need that i-pad and it overheats. The i-pad doesn't show you the elevations as well as the charts and since we are flying into mountainous areas in western South Dakota and Wyoming we will need to see the passes and lower terrain We also will have to deal with density altitude if the weather is hot, humid, & probably hazy. From the ground the sky can look very blue but once you are up there the visability can be less than perfect. Density altitude has an effect on landing distances as well as take off distances, fuel mixture should not be full rich in certain situations, flaps can be a problem sometimes so partial flaps can be used to slow the plane down for landings. It is always best to get out early in the morning if you know that the weather will be hot & humid especially with full fuel loads..

More tomorrow.

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