GodDAMN, did that suck. I should have been back in Arlington last night, but mother nature gave us the big ole middle finger and placed a nice line of 45,000 foot thunderstorms right between Memphis and Arlington. So, we had to crash at my parents' house for the night. At least we weren't stuck somewhere like Pine Bluff, AR and have to get a hotel room. Made it back about 2ish this afternoon to find out the light, fluffy (and a tad BUMPY) clouds we punched through this morning had developed into the evil twin of the 45,000 ft thunderstorms from the day before. Translation: if we had left an hour or so later, I'd STILL be in Memphis.....
The air races in Tunica were pretty sweet. Not a big race fan, but imagine watching the last 3 laps of a NASCAR race, except in three dimensions and faster. Average speed for one of the winning planes was 465 mph. They only do between 5 and 6 laps, so it's pretty intense from the start. None of this boring "fuel management" shit. Throttle all the way forward and try to beat the guys next to you.
Quick lesson in flight: you can increase your speed by exchanging altitude for airspeed. This means you go faster if you dive at the ground. These guys took advantage of that. They were flying about 50 feet off the ground to begin with, but coming out of a turn in the backstretch, they would dive to try to get a speed advantage over the other racers. They were getting so low, they were disappearing behind the trees on the other side of the airport. The frightening thing is, I think I might wanna try that.
Back to flight instructor training, and tomorrow it looks like I'll be flying practice instrument approaches all over the Dallas metroplex....
The air races in Tunica were pretty sweet. Not a big race fan, but imagine watching the last 3 laps of a NASCAR race, except in three dimensions and faster. Average speed for one of the winning planes was 465 mph. They only do between 5 and 6 laps, so it's pretty intense from the start. None of this boring "fuel management" shit. Throttle all the way forward and try to beat the guys next to you.
Quick lesson in flight: you can increase your speed by exchanging altitude for airspeed. This means you go faster if you dive at the ground. These guys took advantage of that. They were flying about 50 feet off the ground to begin with, but coming out of a turn in the backstretch, they would dive to try to get a speed advantage over the other racers. They were getting so low, they were disappearing behind the trees on the other side of the airport. The frightening thing is, I think I might wanna try that.
Back to flight instructor training, and tomorrow it looks like I'll be flying practice instrument approaches all over the Dallas metroplex....