Diverting IFR to Columbus, OH

Well it is not a surprise when people are wondering 'what happened to the race'? As noted previously, there IS a race still going on of sorts, but it was not the one originally planned. Most of the teams now are simply trying to beat the weather systems and get around or through them anyway they can so they can make Maine by 17:00H on Friday afternoon.

The Purple Hearts filed an IFR plan to head to Columbus, Ohio to try and skirt the complete weather system instead of continually fighting it all the way up to Michigan and then back down again. Just too much difficult flying for an exhibition race. Many of the other racers are heading directly to Penn Yan, New York with the same intention to get beyond the constant IFR build-up that has encompassed the top of the country. In the end, even the Hearts had to divert to their alternate IFR airport northeast of Columbus due to convective activity building. The illustrations below show the enormous front that was wreaking havoc on the racers.  The firsr picture below is a on-board Stratus scan of the weather. To impress upon the significance of that screen for non-pilots - it is supposed to be a light green sectional chart with circles for all the airports and communications frequencies over a wide area. As you can see it is basically a continuous wall cloud covering the entire airspace.

The short answer to what will happen with the race and how can the race committee can sort out all of the teams that are in the race, out of the race, or only completing a few legs is - ' I have NO idea'. I don't recall so much weather constantly impacting the race in over a decade since we have been following them so this is completely new territory for our team. We'll still keep posting until the ladies get home though so stay tuned. -ed

Entire sectional chart showing heavy weather

This  is the onboard scan of the weather on the way to Columbus

Denise fuels plane in Galion, OH with onlooking  crop duster

The Hearts pick their way through heavy weather