STARKVILLE — Joyce Parker, born in the Cradle of Aviation, also known as Long Island, New York, has always lived with her head in the clouds.
“My eyes were always skybound,” Parker said. “Even as a little girl, all the time, I saw planes going over our heads, and I was always looking up.”
Now a school instructor and pilot in Topeka, Kansas, Parker has spent more than 20 years chasing that childhood dream. At 66, she’s already flown in two cross-country races. She and her co-pilot, Tamara Willits, have now set their sights on a third that will bring them to Starkville later this month.
The team, known as Team Midwest Bess, will race alongside 95 other women on the 2,426-mile trek from Fairhope, Alabama, to Spokane, Washington, for the 48th annual Air Race Classic, an all-female, cross country air race.
Pilots will take off at 8 a.m. June 17 from H.L. Sonny Callahan Airport in Fairhope and must reach Felts Field Airport in Spokane by 5:30 p.m. June 20.
Racers will travel across 10 states, stopping at eight cities along the way. This year, Starkville has been added to the route for the first time, with planes stopping at the George M. Bryan Airport during the first day of the race to refuel.
Mayor Lynn Spruill, the first woman in the history of the U.S. Navy to qualify as a carrier pilot, said she’s excited to welcome air race pilots to Starkville in the coming weeks.
“I am very excited that these women have the opportunity to participate in such a prestigious event,” Spruill told The Dispatch. “… I am especially pleased that they are choosing Starkville as a stopover. Since this will be the first time we have been a part of the flight plans, I hope they will incorporate us into it again with a layover planned.”
George M. Bryan Airport Director Rodney Lincoln said spectators are welcome to watch the planes land, though they must stay behind the airport’s fence. Lincoln said planes will begin arriving at 9 a.m. and will continue through into early afternoon.
“If they bring their lawn chairs, that’d be nice,” Lincoln said. “That way, they can have front row seats from a long ways.”
In addition to Starkville, pilots will refuel at seven more stops along the way. These stopping points also serve as timing stations to track each plane’s progress through the route.
To keep the race safe, pilots are only permitted to fly during high-visibility daylight hours between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m.
This year’s pilots hail from 29 states, though none are from Mississippi. Pilots are divided into 43 teams and will compete in either the intercollegiate or competition class. Both classes are open to any variety of single or twin-engine piston-powered airplanes with engines between 100 and 600 horsepower. Turbo-charged planes may participate in a non-competition class.
The race’s timing system is based on each team’s handicap flight, a much shorter practice run that helps ensure fair competition. With aircraft types and capabilities varying, this allows teams to race against their own best times rather than against each other.
During Parker’s handicap flight, flying Joybird II, a 1976 Beechcraft Sierra 200, she reached speeds of 150 mph. Now that Parker knows her best speed to beat, she’ll have to navigate varying altitudes and headwinds to get to Spokane even faster.
Her goal is to make it to Spokane by Thursday evening, a day before time is up. Though she’s never placed before, Parker says this year will be different.
“This will be my third race, and they say three is a charm,” Parker said. “We just have a feeling this year that we are going to win. We’re going to be in the top 10.”
This year’s race celebrates the 96th anniversary of the 1929 Powder Puff Derby in which Amelia Earhart and 19 other female pilots raced from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, Ohio, marking the beginning of women’s air racing in the United States.
Parker said continuing the legacy of all-women’s air racing is significant.
“Aviation has been, and still is in a sense, a man’s world,” Parker said. “… Getting together with all female pilots, it’s a sorority of women. We help each other. We bolster each other, and it makes us that much better at what we do.”
A $20,000 award pool will be dispersed between the top five teams in the competition class and top three teams in the intercollegiate class. Up to $3,000 will be awarded to first place pilots, along with other prizes supplied by sponsors.
Spectators can follow pilots on their journey on the ARC website.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
