Midwestern pilots get a taste of Southwestern flying...Can you say DENSITY ALTITUDE & MOUNTAINS?

Wed June 13 - Our mission was flying from Great Bend KS to Gallup NM via Tucumcari NM. We had a good night's sleep and a good breakfast. Headed to the airport to turn in our crew car. Preflighted. Got our weather briefing. Time to launch. Fuel stop in Tucumcari with hopes of landing in Gallup to overnight, then we'll have a fresh, cool morning flight on Thursday for our flight to Lake Havasu. That's the plan...

Beautiful day leaving Great Bend and more flat land headed to Tucumcari...blue skies...a bit of a head wind...but all is well in the world. The excitement for our adventure is building...Havasu is drawing closer.

It's easy flying, and it's time to bring Flora the Flamingo out to join The Flyin' HawaiIowans at the controls.

The land below is beginning to look drier. The air temps are rising. We're flying across the panhandles of OK and TX. The surface of the earth begins to show signs of rising, uneven terrain from the flat earth that we've been flying over since leaving Iowa.

We land at Tucumcari (elev 4065 ft) and taxi up to the fuel island. It's quite a bit warmer outside. We're met by a line guy ready to top us off for the next leg to Gallup. As we land at Tucumcari, Judy Snow (Classic 31) makes a radio call and says HII. She and Linda Moody, my previous co-pilot from '08 and '09, are headed to Albuquerque for their overnight. Yep, we're definitely hearing racers talking to air traffic controllers on the radios now as they are converging on Lake Havasu.

Well in all honesty, Tucumcari was our least favorite stop on this trip...no ice for pilots...self serve fuel price 50 cents higher than advertised...the fuel bill appears to be 8 (yes, EIGHT) gallons more than shown by our fuel flow meter that's been rock solid the whole trip. We take off after feeling a little gouged at the pump, so to speak.

We file an instrument plan to angle about a bit on the route to Gallup (elev 6472) so that we can stay at 10,000 to 11,000 ft as we cross mountains and desert. It's early afternoon and getting hotter. Judy Snow mentioned that Gallup would be density altitude of 9600 feet, which means that although the elevation is 6472 feet, taking off from Gallup now would be as if the elevation was 9600 ft due to the temperature and barometer conditions. We're landing at Gallup and spending the night.

Gaining the altitude necessary to get to Gallup was a challenge to say the least. Slowest climb ever for me. It was a struggle just to get 200 ft of positive climb before losing 300 ft - the proverbial 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. At some moments, I felt like we were hovering.

At one point, the controller contacted to say that if I couldn't climb to 11,000, then I'd need to turn south or turn back. All of a sudden, we hit a huge updraft and sailed up for that last 500 ft of climb that we needed. Whoohoo!!! We were at 11,000 ft, and we worked hard to keep it for the rest of the flight. Protecting our hard-earned altitude required careful attention to the instruments. We had to finely tune the fuel mixture to ensure that the engine was being kept cool enough - not too hot on the oil, not to hot on the cyclinder head temps.

The sights were so amazing; however, we were so busy attending to our flying that we didn't shoot any pictures on this leg from Tucumcari to Gallup. Finally, Gallup was on the horizon. We were definitely ready to land and call it a day. The folks at Gallup Flying Service were great - fueling, checking the oil, cleaning the windshield. They give us a ride to our hotel. We find two other race teams on the ground - #25 Rick's Chicks from PA and #37 Bev & Sue from the East Coast. Now, THEY have flying stories to tell from their journeys.

Tomorrow brings the last leg to arrive at the START of the 2012 Air Race Classic - Lake Havasu AZ