Three female flying aces representing Middle Tennessee State University’s Department of Aerospace just returned from a successful 2,400-mile cross-country trip that pilot Farilyn Hurt described as “empowering, exciting, moving and stressful.”

“By the end, I felt I could literally do anything,” May MTSU graduate Hurt, 23, of Milledgeville, Georgia, said of the all-women Air Race Classic 2023. The four-day flying event started June 20 in Grand Fork, North Dakota, and ended in Homestead, Florida, on June 23.

Hurt, fellow graduate Briana “Bri” McDonald and junior Alyssa Smith of Collierville, Tennessee, finished 28th overall out of nearly 50 teams registered for the event, which reinforces teamwork, endurance and a bit of luck. Teams from Kent State and Southern Illinois universities finished first and second overall.

“It created a lot of experience and piloting skills that I can combine with what I learned at MTSU, enabling me to help teach others, and taking sound advice from the other women,” said McDonald, 22, of Jackson, Tennessee. “I’m a younger gen (generation) and they inspire me.”

Smith turned 20 on June 20. She and her flying mates celebrated her birthday with an early-morning television interview at Smyrna Airport about their race experience and at a party later in the day with other friends.

Their trip was filled with positives and they successfully completed their quest, but the trio was briefly frustrated when a thunderstorm grounded their departmental Diamond DA40 in Pell City, Alabama. They used the opportunity to become MTSU recruiters when two local high school seniors at the airport “were figuring out what aviation school to attend,” Smith said.

“We sat them down in our plane, turned on the avionics (electrical system) so they could see moving parts, and they got the biggest smiles on their faces,” she added. “We told them about our aerospace program, so something good came out of the storm.”

McDonald has landed a job with MTSU’s Flight Operations Center at Murfreesboro Airport. Hurt wants to be “a connection point between community and aviation companies,” both in outreach and philanthropic work, while Smith’s ambitions are to fly with a regional airline.

The aerospace department sponsored this year’s team, and a dance and silent auction in May and other fundraising helped support the trio.

Their coach, Meredith Boardman, director of MTSU aerospace safety, organized the department’s return to the Air Race Classic for the first time since 2018.

She said MTSU plans to enter a team in 2024 “with bigger, better goals. … It is a competition, and we will always continue developing our strategy, but I truly believe that participating in the ARC adds value to our department as a whole.

“Of course, there’s the development of technical skills and decision-making skills, but the most rewarding part for me was watching them grow into better teammates throughout the trip. Most, if not all, of these ladies will end up flight instructing, and these are skills and qualities that we need among our instructors to develop the next generation of professional pilots.”

An all-woman ground crew — junior Hailey Harrison, who handled social media and flight following; 2023 graduate Rachel Frankenberger, responsible for strategy and flight following; senior Katie Thayer, who took care of logistics and social media; and senior Denisa Pravotiakova, who handled fundraising — kept the MTSU flyers informed, safe and aware of weather conditions.

Boardman said aerospace staff members Nate Tilton, flight training manager; Sean Logan, assistant flight training manager; and Matt Ivey, ground operations manager and strategy, assisted throughout the trip.

— Randy Weiler (Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu)