Girls Club meeting March 19

What a treat for the Girls Club and all of us adults!!

The special guest speaker was Bernice "Bee" Falk Haydu a member of the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) in 1944-45.  She spoke of the training and ordeals of women learning to fly in that era.  In July 2009 President Obama awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots with Ms Bee in attendance with other notable women pilots.  She is a wonderful 90 years old with still the love of flying. She flew the 25th Powder Puff Derby and most recently she flew the ARC several years ago with Terry Carbonell as her Mama Bird.

The program for the forty plus girls in attendance were introduced to other women in aviation.
1)  Lynda Meeks an airline pilot and founder of Girls with Wings (nonprofit organization using women in aviation to inspsire girls to achieve their full potential) presented an introduction to the cockpit instruments and radio communication.  Two of the girls made a poster about aviation with a focus on Lynda.  Side note Lynda flew the ARC also when a pilot became very ill.  Lynda was able to qualify and flew in her place.
2)  Julie Padgett a pilot with the US Coast Guard also gave a presentation of what is entailed as a pilot in the SAR (Search and Rescue) missions as well as in the law enforcement and natural disaster divisions.  Julie had been on a mission at 3am that morning but would not miss speaking with the girls.!!
3)  Other women in aviation careers who gave short introductory presentations to the girls were from Airbus, Teledyne Continental Motors, Air Traffic Control, GAT Airline Ground Support and UPS.  The girls had a lot of questions especially about how many tests do you have to take!!

Lots of pictures but the most notable were;  Ms Bee with Terry and Inger (director of the Girls Club), Ms Bee at the signing with President Obama and her gold medalk, Julie of the USCoastguard, girls with poster and Lynda, Mama Bird Terry and her two Baby Birds - Ms Bee and me  and Inger and her tireless assistants.

Pizza was served and away the girls flew!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Linda

Girls with their heads in the clouds!

March, hurtling headlong into April

The preparations are moving along-- Linda has been out practicing her high-speed low approaches in Ms. Lima, dealing with airplane readiness and paperwork, designing our business cards, and consulting with Terry Carbonell, our Mother Bird.

Terry flies her Cessna 182 up from her Florida home once a month to meet with some 50 or 60 girls from the South Alabama Boys and Girls Club, as they explore the joys and possibilities of aviation. After six months of talking about flying, the girls will be following the Air Race, adopting a team to follow, cheering us all on, and meeting us at the finish line. More on this to come.

As for her contribution to this whole thing, Mimi, mostly from her perch in North Carolina, has been eagerly anticipating, reading, compiling checklists, and figuring out the complexities of a new camera purchased in honor of the occasion. She has let her fingers do the flying- with a mouse moving over satellite images of the route- and says it's going to be some amazing territory!.

Mimi plans to be in Mobile for a few days in mid-April to compare notes, and looks forward to another chance to do some real flying.  After that, it may be mid-June headed for IOW before we can get together again, unless Ms. Lima can be coaxed to fly northeast for a pretty spring week.

Practice run!

From Mimi- Yr humble prospective co-pilot was in Mobile last week, and had a chance to see what this racing thing's all about. To start with, it was a perfectly gorgeous day, mid-70s, clear, and smooth. Linda and I departed Mobile Regional in her pretty Cherokee, headed for a tiny strip in Mississippi, and then several more uncontrolled fields in a nice round-robin, on our way to a touch-and-go at Mobile Downtown Airport, which will be the real race's terminus. Past forest fires (prescribed burns, apparently), over winding rivers and checkerboard farmland we flew, at the Cherokee's top speed- averaging about 127 knots. The fly-bys were fun. Long accustomed to nice gentle descents and mannerly arrivals, our zooming straight at the end of the runway at full throttle, then continuing the length of the runway at 300 feet, was a new experience for me. Whee! Only messed up the stop watch once...and almost always found the runway before we were there, so maybe we really will be able to do this thing. Eventually. I still have much to learn, but one thing's obvious-- this race is going to be a blast.