Team Revs Up for 17,000-Mile Air Derby

They study cross-continental maps, weather patterns and air charts, plotting the shortest distance between New York City and the tip of South America.

Within weeks, all their preparations and experience will be tested as Faith Hillman and Connie Schurr climb into the cockpit of the Piper Twin Comanche and head south.

The two women pilots, one professional and the other an amateur, will be among 16 teams of aviators taking off next month in the Air Race of the Americas, a 17,000-mile derby that has attracted fliers from all over the globe and take more than three weeks.

“It’s really challenging,” said Hillman, who has flown jumbo jets for a major commercial airline for 10 years. “You have to use everything you know to your advantage.”

Hillman and Schurr, both of Malibu, are training and preparing for the contest at Camarillo Airport, where the Piper PA-30 will undergo equipment changes to reduce drag and increase speed.

For now, it is a sleek white craft with blue trim that comfortably seats four.

But by race day, when Hillman and Schurr depart the Eastern seaboard, special features will have been installed to reduce friction, landing gear smoothed over for the same reason and the back seats replaced with gas tanks.

The logo-decked plane of Team AmeriQuest, as Hillman and Schurr are known to their collection of corporate sponsors, will leave New York on March 31.

“Once our wheels lift off in New York, the clock is on,” said Hillman, who finished fourth out of 28 teams in 1992’s Round the World Air Race. “Then when we land in Guadeloupe, the clock stops.”

After Guadeloupe, an island off Puerto Rico, they will stop in Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru, competing with aviators from 10 countries flying a variety of aircraft.

They will fly long legs over oceans and rain forests before reaching Punta Arenas, the southernmost landing spot just across the Straits of Magellan from Tierra del Fuego.

Schurr said she and Hillman knew what kind of plane they wanted when they began talking strategy. The Piper may be smaller and fly lower than other entrants, she said, but it is perfectly suited to their needs.

Although any pilot with the resources and drive is welcome to participate in the race, it is surely not for everyone. Contestants face long hours of navigating, inconsistent weather patterns and the ever-present possibility that something could go wrong.

But Hillman and Schurr remain undaunted and say the Piper is the best plane for the task.

“Because of the winds and the weather, its size will do a lot to help us win the race,” said Schurr, a professional artist and part-time aviatrix. “It’s a plane that will be very compatible with this race.”

Team mechanic Dave McCabe has flown the Piper all across the Southwest. He knows its strengths and weaknesses and is confident that Team AmeriQuest will do well.

“It’s a very dependable airplane,” said McCabe, who operates an airline maintenance shop at Camarillo Airport.

“But we will be installing an engine monitoring system to get the highest efficiency out of it,” said McCabe, whose father, Mac McCabe, donated the plane to Hillman and Schurr for use in the race. “That way, they can spot problems.”

The race is open to many styles of planes, with each make given specific handicaps designed to level the playing field.

Each aircraft has standard performance levels under various conditions spelled out in its flight manual. When team members exceed those levels, either through piloting skill or by capitalizing on atmospheric conditions, points are scored.

“It’s a handicap system to allow airplanes that are not the same speed race against each other in a fair way,” race official Jeff Bennett said from New York. “Each aircraft races against itself.”

That makes it interesting for the pilots. “There’s a lot of strategy involved,” Hillman said. “A lot of it goes back to your experience as a pilot.”

Among 18 sponsors who are helping to get Team AmeriQuest off the ground, Mac McCabe said he does not mind his back seats being ripped away to make room for extra fuel.

“It’s tricky,” he said. “You don’t want to have too much because that will slow you down. But if you don’t carry enough, you have to land short, and that will knock you out of the race.”

The Air Race of the Americas is organized by Arc En Ciel, a Paris-based promotion company. National Aeronautic Assn. officials will be on hand to verify any world records, of which Team AmeriQuest is aiming for 32.

There is no purse, but trophies that will be handed out at an April awards banquet.

“It’s strictly for the glory,” said Bennett. “It’s just a fantastic opportunity for general-aviation pilots to go different places.”

The pilots are welcomed at each stop by local dignitaries and news media, with parades and parties scheduled almost every day.

“It’s an international race, so you have to deal with [air traffic] controllers in a lot of languages,” Hillman said. “Getting the landing instructions right can save a lot of time, so we’re practicing our Spanish and Portuguese.”