EAA Sport Aviation - October 2009

The contestants have four days, flying visual flight rules in daylight hours, to reach the terminus. Each plane is assigned a handicap speed, and the goal is to have the actual groundspeed as far over the handicap speed as possible. Each aircraft is assigned a number representing its takeoff order at the start of the race. This system enables airplanes of varying horsepower to participate, and pilots are given the leeway to handle the elements, holding out for better weather, and winds.

Barb Goodwin

Team 18

“You will always have in mind that you want to do your best and you want to be in the top 10,” said Gene Nora Jessen. “The disappointment, of course, is when you’re not. We flew a good race and an accurate race. The racecourse was a big circle, and we had either head winds or quartering head winds. Today, with GPS, it is not about flying skills anymore. GPS keeps us all on course and nobody wanders.”

Gene Nora Jessen (left) and Cammie Patch. Gene flew sales demos for the Beech Aircraft factory, operated her own flight school, and served as international president of the Ninety-Nines. Cammie Patch is a former assistant manager and ground school instructor at the Dover Air Force Base Flight Training Center.

You will always have in

mind that you want to do

your best and you want to

be in the top 10.

—Gene Nora Jessen

Barb Goodwin

Bill Totten (right),
an Air Race Classic
inspector, stands beside
Carolyn Van Newkirk
and Maureen Goodwin.
Inspectors looked
for safety items and
undocumented speed
modifications. They
ensured that none of the
participants had illegally
modified an aircraft to
enhance its speed, prior
to the race start.

Gene Nora, flying a 1977 Beech C24R, is one of the original Mercury 13 women applicants for the space program in 1961. Gene Nora’s love affair with airplanes started as a Civil Air Patrol cadet and has continued for more than 50 years. She has competed in previous transcontinental air races.