Did anyone outside the SOH RTWR Team know this was even happening? From 0800CST Saturday morning until 1830CST last evening, Team SOH was in the air, 24/7 in an effort to be first across the finish line and hoist the winners trophy. We fell just short in the closest finish to date racing against flightsim.com and Avsim. At times we had as many as 14 pilots on Team Speak checking winds, weather, alternate routing, giving moral support and in the air in teams of two (Baton holder and Wingman). Other team members were readying their aircraft for takeoff as the baton was passed to them. . .flying the DH Hornet, F8F Bearcat, F7F-3 Tigercat, P-51 Mustang, 737's, 747's, Spits and even the F-86 at altitudes up to 30,000ft and higher to catch favorable wind currents hoping to save time and give us the edge. Many of us were grabbing a few hours sleep as others took off so we could be mildly coherent when it was our turn, most got less than 4hrs in any 24hr period as we kept aircraft in the air. There we many folks, who could only offer brief periods of flying as they had RW commitments that kept them from flying more, but kudos to them for stepping up and helping when they could as it gave others some much needed rest.
Behind the scenes work, just to get us to the point of being ready to go with a full flight plan, was handled by some great folks who are experts at the RTWR thing and our success in getting from point A to point B would never have been possible without the hard work they put in for months and months leading up to the Race Time Start. My guess is those same folks (Tako-Kichi and Dangerousdave26 for starters) are looking ahead to 2015 and the chance to show our stuff and take home the trophy.
In closing, my thanks to every member of the team, great job one and all. I learned a lot, both about the techniques of good racing, but also about flying aircraft to their limits and getting the most out of them. Things I rarely if ever concerned myself with up to this point, lol. I also met some great people online, many that I had heard about but never interacted with and there was never a time when I felt like the odd man out because I had never flown in the Race before. I was given every opportunity to fly, both as Wingman and Baton Holder and tried my best not to screw anything up that would cost us a flight or any bonus time we were racing for. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our success as a team. . .yes, we fell short this time, but it was still a blast. . .and I actually got a full nights sleep, FINALLY!
Originally Posted by AussieMan
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