At approximately 10:30AM Oklahoma time, The Purple Hearts returned to the air officially on their way to Sweetwater, Texas and the Air Race Classic. Sadly our ferry co-pilot, Laurie Strand who helped reposition N8321T to Oklahoma could not be there for the send off as she had an early commercial flight back to Hartford.
Teresa and Denise loaded up the plane with gear and made their final checks before opening the hangar for its exit via tug up the ramp. Since nothing ever REALLY goes to plan in air racing, the minor task turned into an interesting intervention for Teresa's neighbor David Ames as he graciously offered to tug the TUG up the grass taxiway with the Archer trailing the parade. Clearly a 4X4 tractor/tug will be on the early Christmas list for future ops out of 2OK2.
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Team prepares to launch from 2OK2
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| The TUG needs a bigger TUG to haul a 2000 pound load |
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After a brief run-up and systems check, the team was ready to go. Teresa took the controls of N8321T for the first time in many months and did a single loop around the airstrip and returned to land to get a feel for the flight controls of the purple Archer. Satisfied that the plane and pilots were up for the task, Teresa and Denise launched into a perfect sky with light headwinds to the start of the race some 250 miles south into TEXAS!
-ed
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| LIFT OFF! - 10:30H from 2OK2 runway |
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Purple Hearts make Texas border 11:30H
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