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Showing posts from July, 2006

2006 AYA Air Race...Did Someone Say "Secret Service"?

2006 AYA Air Race...Did Someone Say "Secret Service"? I think a lot of folks heard Ron Levy mention the Secret Service at the Fredericksburg AYA convention and/or saw a reference here on the 'Gang, and wondered what that was all about. It's a great tale. Andy Elliott set up a nice fast race course: from Fredericksburg, out 36 miles to Kestrel, with the finish 29 miles out to Johnson City Airport. The reason that the race did not terminate back at T82 was a clever resolution of a difficult logistics problem, that being how to have 15-18 airplanes overfly the field at a low altitude to score a finish while simultaneously recovering them for landing. Plus, the 15-mile leg back to Fredericksburg gave the racers ample time to pull back and cool the rockets and for coordinating flow back into the pattern (and removing the need for an Air Boss Team to get involved). Great job, Andy! So, how does the Secret Service fit in all this? Well, you may recognize the name of th