Flying Knights Air Rally - 5/18/2008

Joker (Bud Newhouse) has been inviting us to participate the Flying Knights Air Rally for the past two years. We were not able to go last year and were not sure about this year until a few days ago. This year is the 23rd air rally (race) organized by the Flying Knights Club at Lunken Airport, Cincinnati. Joker is one of the organizers. I got up early and checked the weather. A cold front was just coming through the area. It was raining hard over my house. Radar showed large areas of rain from Cincinnati to Huntington, WV. The forecast during the rally at Lunken was wind 17 gust 24 kts. The AccurWeather forecast of my hometown was 17 kts direct crosswind. By 9 am, the rain had past and Lunken was reporting sky clear and wind calm. We decided to go. Portsmouth to Lunken is only 75 nm and should take a little more than half an hour flight time. Unfortunately, as soon as we climbed to 2000' the wind was 20+ kts. At 4,500' it was 40+ kts. I decided to stay low at 2,500' (hills here are around 1000'). I got about 26kts of head wind all the way. The air was also bumpy.

Lunken Terminal Building

Arrive at Lunken and taxied to the old terminal building at 11:00 am. We were the first to arrive. We were also the first to register. I read the rule and realized that there were two courses to choose from: a short course of 70 nm and a long course of 125 nm. Having a faster airplane, we chose the long course. The race rule is for each pilot to select a course, then declare a time. Time starts when a takeoff clearance is given by the tower and it stops when the airplane over fly the club house wall. After the over fly, landing sequence and clearance are given by the tower. So each person is racing against his/her own estimate. I picked 60 minutes to be my time estimate. During the briefing, Joker announced that he has spiced up the race by requiring a touch-n-go at an airport, that is Georgetown for the short courseand Clinton County for the long course. This really throw people's estimate off. Before the end of the briefing we were each given a RACER #. It was based on the speed of the airplane. All communications during the race was to use our Racer number instead of the tail number. My racer number was number four following three Bonanzas and followed by a Cirrus 22. I am sure the Cirrus is faster but he declared a slower cruise speed. There were also two RV-8s (they flew formation), Joker's being one. Somehow they stayed behind with a higher racer number.

Taxi out in sequence of our RACER number

We started the engine at 12:30 pm. I had my wife to be my navigator. She programmed GPS and kept the course sheet with frequencies and distances. Before we started, she immediately made an estimate of time for each leg (I did not do a thorough flight plan). This estimate became our plan for the race. We basically flew each leg against the time estimate. The air was bumpy and with strong winds. We were flying a rectangular course and bound to have both head and tail winds.

Cirrus behind us.

Lined up waiting for taking off.

Initially we followed the Bonanza ahead of us. When we realized that they were flying a wider course and was a little faster than us, we decided not to bother following them. Since part of the way we were flying under Cincinnati class B airspace, we have to fly low (settle at 2,500'-3,000'). Our first waypoint was K62 (Falmouth, KY). After the turn, we flew east to KGEO (Georgetown). KGEO is the T-n-G airport for the short course people. By the time we got there a few airplanes were already doing T-n-Gs. FBO at KGEO realized that there were large number of airplanes coming, they got on the radio and tried to get us to take their cheaper fuel! The following airport is I66 (Clinton County). it is on the north west side of Wilmington Airborne Airpark, the Airborne Express hub. We are supposed to do T-n-G at I66. To get to I66 we must circle around the KILN class D airspace. The cross wind and gust were strong at I66. A few pilots decided to disqualify themselves by not doing T-n-G ("Bonanza is not good at touch-and-goes. ...")

Just took off, flying over Ohio River.

K62 Falmouth, KY.

GEO Georgetown.

Base 21 on Clinton County.

We did our T-n-G uneventfully. The next waypoint was ISZ (Blue Ash). After Blue Ash, it was a 8.7 nm run back to Lunken. We were supposed to call Lunken tower right after passing ISZ, do a low approach over runway 21L then break for landing on 21L. Someone at ISZ was not happy with all the traffic overhead flying opposite to their traffic pattern (for crying out loud, we were 1000' higher than their pattern.) Approaching KLUK we noticed that our time was really close. I fire-walled the throttle and descended to gain speed. An Piper a few hundred feet above us (for the short course) was trying to slow down. We passed it in no time. When I passed the club house, I noticed my timer was right at 60 minutes. My wife notified me that she started the timer a few seconds late. At that point I was going to call the tower, but the frequency was busy. I waited several seconds before I get to call tower. Even so, I must have stepped over someone's transmission since tower asked me to say it again. We broke to the left and did a left pattern and landed. The wind gust was strong and coming from the right. For a brief moment we got picked up by the gust.

ISZ Blue Ash.

Catching up a Cherokee.

After the race it was time for socializing and food. There were a lot of door prizes. Unfortunately we did not get one. After the race time came out, we found that we were 17 seconds off our estimate. The first place was 2 seconds off, second place 7 seconds, and third place 15 seconds. The Cirrus behind us followed us all the way and was 21 seconds off, he estimated the same 60 minutes as us. It was not bad for us to be the 4th in our first race! It was indeed a fun day.

It is also worth mentioning that the nice lady tower controller joined us for the party. As we were leaving she approached us and gave us one of her prize bags. She said that she noticed that we did not get anything. Since she has two bags she wanted to share one with us. She also invites us back to Lunken. That really warmed our heart.

APRS flight track for today's flight.
Notice a circular path around Wilmington? Have to avoid the class D airspace there.