Pilots aim to beat time in air race

Planes touch down in Hot Springs during all-women contest

By: Don Thomason - Sentinel-Record

FIRST IN: Hot Springs Memorial Field lineman Dan Smith, middle, helps pilots Jessica Stearns, of Bonita Springs, Fla., left, and Cheryl Lynn Dratler, of Fort Myers, Fla., out of Dratler’s Beechcraft Baron after the duo landed in Hot Springs, the third checkpoint of the all-women Air Race Classic.

The first of more than 30 airplanes to land Tuesday at Hot Springs Memorial Field for this year’s all-women Air Race Classic touched down just before 2 p.m.

Flown by Cheryl Lynn Dratler, 53, of Fort Myers, Fla., and co-pilot Jessica Stearns, of Bonita Springs, Fla., the 1975 twin-engine B...

Published: 06/23/2010