Planes carrying 100 Wonder Women land at Sault Airport (9 photos)

“It’s been a whirlwind, but we’re having so much fun.”

That from a beaming Cathy Troyer of West Lafayette, Ind., piloting one of 55 planes carrying approximately 100 pilots across the eastern U.S. and northern Ontario in the 43rd annual Air Race Classic (ARC).

Troyer spoke to SooToday at the Sault Ste. Marie Airport Thursday morning after she and two fellow crew members flew in from Wausau, Wis., refuelled and relaxed before taking to the skies and heading to North Bay, the next stop in this year’s race.

Troyer, 23, is already a highly experienced professional pilot, first learning to fly in 2012 when still a teen.

“I was a young’un,” Troyer laughed.

“I was really interested in planes when I was growing up. I thought ‘maybe I won’t be a pilot’ because there are a lot of men in the industry. Women only make up about five or six per cent of the industry. I’m from a family with a background in medicine, but I took flying lessons and I got the aviation bug.”

Troyer is now a corporate pilot who flies private jets, taking time off from her job to compete in this year’s Air Race Classic.

The 2019 ARC, a women’s air racing event, comes 90 years after women's air racing started in 1929 with the Women’s Air Derby, in which 20 pilots raced from Santa Monica, Calif. to Cleveland, Ohio.

“It’s so amazing to come together in this way with several other female pilots. It’s so empowering that we’re all doing this together,” said Troyer, the captain of a three-woman crew, flying a Piper Warrior plane with co-pilots Denise Whitford and Morgan Pietruch.

“It’s such an exhausting race. We don’t have auto pilot, so we’ve got to be constantly holding on to the aircraft, so we switch back and forth to relieve each other of fatigue,” said Troyer, taking part in her second ARC.  

The race started in Jackson, Tenn., Tuesday, its pilots doing a fly past over Sault, Michigan’s Sanderson Field Municipal Airport before crossing into Canadian airspace Thursday.

Six of the planes in the race were refuelling at the Sault Airport when SooToday visited Thursday morning.

The race ends in Welland, Ont. Friday evening.

“It’s great for the airport. We’re doing this as an opportunity to showcase the airport, hoping some of these racers will want to come back to the Sault and visit the community. Just being on the map and being selected to be one of the airports for the race is an honour for us,” said Terry Bos, Sault Ste. Marie Airport Development Corporation (SSMADC) president and CEO.

To see the Air Race Classic’s route and for more information on the event, click here