VAN NUYS : 16th Valley Air Derby Is Set for Takeoff

Come Saturday, they will check their navigational equipment one last time, review flight plans, collect good-luck kisses from their husbands and boyfriends, and give their light planes full throttle as they head north into hoped-for blue skies.

They are the women pilots who will be competing in a daylong air race from Van Nuys Airport to Mesquite, Nev., about 90 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

But don’t call it a “powder-puff” race--a name associated with another famous race for women pilots, in any case--they say.

Competitors call it a unique opportunity for experienced and novice pilots to sharpen their flying and navigational skills. Besides, say race officials, even though it is organized by a women’s group, about half of the estimated 25 racers will be men.

Past participants say they compete in the Valley Air Derby, now in its 16th year, as much for the fun and camaraderie as they do for the experience.

“It’s fun, it’s challenging, and it helps you to increase your long-distance piloting skills,” said Paula Sandling, a Woodland Hills resident who has finished in the top 10 in previous years.

The race is sponsored by the San Fernando Valley chapter of the Ninety Nines, an international women pilots association whose first president was Amelia Earhart, America’s most famous woman pilot.

Planes of many types will begin taking off at 9 a.m. and fly northeast on a timed, 400-mile zigzag course that will take them over the Grapevine, through the Antelope Valley and Mojave Desert and across the southern tip of Nevada.

Pilots are required to perform seven flybys--whipping just 200 feet above a timing line at speeds up to 200 m.p.h.--at airports along the way to allow race officials to make sure no one has taken any unauthorized shortcuts.

The key to winning the Derby, say those in the know, is staying strictly on course and finding the altitudes with the best tail winds. Because each plane is assigned a handicap based on its performance level, even a first-time racer can win, said Mary Rawlings, chairwoman of the Air Derby.

According to Rawlings, only once in the Derby’s history has there been a near-accident--several years ago, when an aircraft lost power and its pilot was forced to make an emergency landing in the desert. No one was injured.

“The only danger is the weather,” said Gloria May, who with partner Dene Chabot-Fence won the Derby in 1992. “If people go out and fly into a thunderstorm, or if they get careless with their fuel consumption and they run out of fuel, well, it gives aviation a bad name.”

The diciest moments of May’s 35 years as a pilot came in September, 1993, when she and Chabot-Fence flew the Mile High Derby, a 500-mile race originating in Denver. After stopping at an airport along the route for fuel, they started climbing again, but not as fast as they should have. They struggled to clear a mountain range that loomed menacingly before them.

“We were hedge-hopping over those mountains,” recalled May, a resident of Kerman, near Fresno. “That was a little hairy.”

Racers say they enjoy the race because of the challenge of figuring out the course, which changes every year, and because of the people.

“It’s designed to be an interesting race,” said Madeline Kurrasch of Palos Verdes. “It’s neat because we will be out over the desert.”

“It’s the camaraderie and the competition,” May said.

After a tiring day of flying, the racers will gather at Mesquite’s Virgin River Hotel for the time-honored tradition of trying to tease people’s scores out of them. The point of the game is to figure out how one stacked up against everyone else.

“Everybody is telling lies,” chuckled Sandling. “They’re trying to get information out of you to see if maybe they won a trophy.”

The top three finishers get token cash awards and the top five get trophies, Rawlings said. This year, she hopes the race will net $1,800 for the Ninety Nines’ scholarship program for student pilots.

The Ninety Nines was founded in 1929 in Long Island, N.Y., to further aviation education and safety and promote women in aviation. Valley women pilots founded the local chapter, based at Van Nuys Airport, in 1952. Among its 90 members are three former WASPs, or Women Air Force Service Pilots, who during World War II ferried aircraft across the country and performed other flying duties for the military.

Mary Glassman, the chapter’s president, said that despite women’s gains in aviation, there is still a need for an organization like the Ninety Nines.

“(Women pilots) still need that companionship, that mentorship, that encouragement to continue to go on,” she said. “They still have doors that they need to get through. We still have a long way to go.”