Saturday in Sunny and Stormy South Florida

Today started at 4 AM as we prepared ourselves and the plane for the handicap trials. The idea was to get out early before the thermals, wind and clouds started to build up.

I flew with a wonderful woman from TX as the race official setting the handicap for N4685M. She is an orthopedic PA who flies for a living and falls back on her PA position while on furlow. She was very knowledgeable about Bonanza's so that helped the process along. She was also complementary on how I handled the plane which made me exceedingly happy.

When Sheryl and I flew into Fort Myers the weather was so poor we were not able to see this beautiful area, but today the air was clear and the water was blue and it was just beautiful.

After the handicap trial we were to go to inspection, but needed to put the new larger numbers on the plane first, but wait, where are the numbers? Answer? No where to be found. By now we are becoming proficient at finding new sets of numbers, so after the delay of doing so, we slapped them onto the plane and got it off to inspection. Inspection went well, thanks to Pete for letting me know where the correct weight and balance was and to Bill for making sure I tagged all the pertinent information in the airplane log books.

With some free time on our hands we took a tour of Sanibel and Captiva Islands. Beautiful!

Tonight was the welcome BBQ with giant pig roast. We met the first time racer team were were assigned to mentor. The poor kids are having all sorts to trials and tribulations including equipment trouble and not having all the required documentation.

We also got to meet the Sandi/Heather team. Sandi works with AOPA and she and I never met before, but had many opportunities to talk about the race during the preceding months. Heather, her teammate, is a management level air traffic controller on the NY TRACON who was on site when Captain Sully put the USAir plane into the Hudson. It is her voice on the TRACON preceding the air traffic controller who was in direct contact with Captain Sully, trying to find an alternate location for him to land. Just talking to her brought tears to my eyes all over again over that incident.

I learned something from my new friend Sandi tonight, so as a special note to the "other Bill" in Indiana, what is this I hear about you needing a checklist for pontoon boat usage? Something about needing a gas tank??? Do tell. Would you like to fill us in?

Back to race info. The deadline for arrival was noon today. As of tonight there is still one race team that did not get in due to weather. There are also three that withdrew for various reasons. We are now a total of 50 airplanes.