Imagine being 10,000 feet in the air in a small, twin-engine aircraft with nothing but approximately 2,400 miles between you and the finish line.
Mickleton's Emily Lewis, 20, will be living that scenario when she climbs in and fires up the 1961 Beechcraft Travel Air at 8 a.m. on Monday and kicks off her journey in the Air Race Classic.
The Air Race Classic, an annual transcontinental air race for female pilots — which begins in Concord, California, and ends in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania — was founded in 1977 and was inspired by similar competitions that began as popular exhibitions in the late 1920s, and were later revived after World War II.
This is Emily's first Air Race Classic, but flying has been in her heart since she was just a little girl.
"I first got interested in aviation when I was really little," Emily said. "As I got older, my brothers were learning how to fly."
Seeing her older brothers learning to fly set off her competitive instincts and she decided she wanted to fly, too.
"I said, 'If they're doing it, let me try,'" Emily said.
The family's urge to fly didn't just start with Emily and her siblings. Her father, aunt, uncle and grandfather are all pilots; her grandfather being the founder of Cross Keys Airport in Williamstown.
Finally, when she was 14, her father, John Lewis, let her start taking flying lessons.
"Then when I was 16 I could fly myself — kind of like having a permit to drive — with supervision I could take off and land myself," Emily said. "Then when I was 17, I got my pilot's license. That's the youngest age you can get your license."
Since then, Emily has been adding ratings such as instrument reading which makes her an all-weather pilot, and, most recently, a multiple engine rating.
Terri Lewis, Emily's mother, said watching her daughter take off in a small airplane is "actually not terrifying at all."
"My husband's a pilot, his father's a pilot, all my kids fly, so they all have good training," Terri said.
While she's always been aware of her daughter's love of flying, Terri was a bit surprised that Emily wanted to participate in the Air Race Classic.
"We went to a women's air group meeting and someone had on a shirt that said 'Air Race Classic,'" Terri recalled. "On the way home, (Emily) was really quiet. I should have known something then. A couple weeks later, she said she wanted to do it and had already sent out emails. So that was it."
Emily had definitely made up her mind to fly in the cross-country flight.
"I'm not so much nervous as I am excited," she said. "This is, by far, the longest (distance) I've flown. I'm just looking forward to seeing the sights below us from such a personal view."
She described flying in a small aircraft, such as the one she and her co-pilot will be traveling in from June 16 to 19, as "euphoric."
"It's one of the greatest feelings," she said. "Once you're in the air, you don't want to come back down. You feel like you're on top of the world, literally."
Currently a geography major at Salisbury University, Emily also has an interest in weather and hopes to someday combine it with her love of flying.
"Weather and aviation go hand-in-hand, and I hope to make a career out of the two," she said.
In the meantime, she hopes to finish the race successfully and then, this summer, will be a counselor at the Future Aviators Summer Camp in Pennsylvania.
"They will do a model rocket launch, go on a flight and learn the basics of flight," she said. "Then they will visit the Air and Space Museum. It's going to be a really good time."
The Air Race Classic is divided into nine legs with nine check points across the country.
To follow Emily's progress, visit www.weathiation.blogspot.com or follow her on Facebook by searching for "Team Friendly Fliers in the Air Race Classic" community.
Story and photos: http://www.nj.com
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