Qualifications

Every female pilot should have the chance to fly in the Air Race Classic at least once in her flying experience! Qualifications to enter ensure that the race maintains a high level of safety and promotes education and sharpening of pilot skills.

Racer Qualifications

Each Team consists of two or more women pilots. Women of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels have raced – and won – the Air Race Classic. The basic qualifications to act as pilot or copilot of a Team are:

• Private or higher airman's certificate with a rating for the class airplane to be flown;
• Minimum 100 hours PIC (pilot in command) logged by credentialing at race Start;
• Current medical certificate or BasicMed documents;
• Proof of required flight review or added rating;
• Either the pilot or copilot must have a minimum of 500 hours PIC or a current instrument rating by credentialing at Race Start;

The basic qualifications for additional teammates are:

• Student pilot or higher airman's certificate.
• Minimum 5 total hours in an airplane.

There are three entry classes: Competition, Intercollegiate, and Non-Competition. The Competition and Intercollegiate Classes receive awards and prizes. The Non-Competition Class is less pressured, and accommodates women and airplanes that may not meet the requirements of the Race Rules. For instance:

• The copilot of a Non-Competition Team need not have a current medical certificate and may have a Sport Pilot license.
• A turbo-charged or experimental airplane can be entered in the Non-Competition Class.

The ARC invites women pilots from all over the globe to come experience the Air Race Classic.  You can download a full set of the 2025 race rules here: E-01 Rules.

Please note that if a Racer is under the age of 18 at the time of registration, a completed C-02a Parental Consent Release of Liability must be uploaded during the Racer registration process. Racers over the age of 18 must upload a completed C-02 Release of Liability.

EDMA (Intercollegiate Only)

If you have either a Cessna 172S or Piper Archer P100 equipped with a G1000 or similar equipment, you can participate as an EDMA (Electronic Data Monitoring Aircraft). We will need to have access to the aircraft data logs from the handicap flights and the race legs. A handicap flight will need to be flown twice: at 2500 RPM and 2600 RPM. The Race would be run at 2500 RPM.

Intercollegiate Class

To promote participation from the next generation of women pilots, the Air Race Classic created the Intercollegiate Class. Since 1993, over 30 colleges and universities — in the U.S. and Canada — have entered Teams in the race.

Each member of a Team racing in the Intercollegiate Class must be affiliated with the college or university that they represent (such as student, faculty, flight instructor, etc.). The Team pilot must be a registered undergraduate student at the college or university, as defined by the requirements of that college or university, at the time of Racer registration. The Team must be registered in the Intercollegiate Class or Non-Competition Class.

Has your college or university participated yet?

Airplane Basic Qualifications

The Air Race Classic is open to a wide variety of general aviation airplanes. Entries have ranged from a Citabria to a Waco biplane to a Piper Seneca, and everything in between. Fast and slow, old and new, basic and complex, all different types have competed and done well. Since airplanes are handicapped individually, in essence, you are racing against your own airplane's best time.

The Competition/Intercollegiate Clases are open to single- or twin-engine airplanes that are certificated in the normal or utility category, with normally aspirated engines between 100 and 600 horsepower rated for continuous maximum operation (no limitations) at full take-off power, unless the airplane meets the EDMA requirements and is raced under those rules. Airplanes that don't meet these qualifications may qualify for the Non-Competition Class. For a full set of airplane qualifications, see the 2025 race rules, which you can download here: E-01 Rules. If you have questions about whether you can race your specific airplane, please contact the ARC Airplane Division.