The Piper Powderpuffs are in Colorado: Carly Shukiar, pilot, and Lucy Freeman, co-pilot, the team known as “Classic racer 31” by air traffic control and the other racers. Their name is an homage to the original name of the event: Women’s Air Race Derby or popularly, the Powder Puff Derby.
They were encouraged and supported by retiring Piper VP Jim McEwen, whose mother Pat flew in the Air Race Classic and to honor her their aircraft, owned by Piper, has tail number N690PM. It derives from Pat’s airplane, Patty Mae, which was a 1969 V-tail Bonanza and Pat thought that all good tail numbers should have a zero so the tail number honors that wish and her initials and her airplane’s year.
Carly and Lucy both said the race was “Awesome!” They had watched the race for years and to have the chance to fly in it was head and shoulders above anything they imagined. “It was challenging. It will test every part of flying,” they both said. Airspace, weather, planning, and power management was a big one. “Flying at full power across all kinds of terrain, airspace, weather, it was very different but very exhilarating!”
They both said it was so much fun, and they had a mantra throughout the flight, “We trust ourselves, we trust the airplane, and we trust each other.”
The three teammates (Bailey is the third, for ground support) are in different fields but they are all pilots. Their goal was to demonstrate what other careers are out there besides flying for the airlines. There are so many other areas of flying besides the airlines.
The pilots both said that the paperwork was a necessary evil but once you do it once, you’ll never want to stop doing it (the race). Lucy said even before they took off the first time in the race they both said, “Oh we’re definitely doing this again.” The coolest part is there are 47 teams and 47 different airplanes yet there was a lot of communication between teams for weather etc. and they really valued that community atmosphere among the racers despite the competitive nature of the event. Yes it is a competition but the actual vibe was that everybody was so supportive and that’s very important and valuable in an event like this.
Carly and Lucy expressed their thanks and gratitude to Piper for their support and the opportunity to represent them. They also thanked Bose, who gifted headsets for the race, which they said, “made ALL the difference!” “It’s been the most amazing experience and we’re really really grateful,” said Carly.
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