 When I came to Purdue, I could just like see all those airplanes flying all the time and you kind of have to go flying. I'm Nicoleta Fala. I'm a PhD student in aerospace engineering and I'm training to fly in an all women cross-country race. It started way back when Amelia Earhart was still doing it and did it every year and the point is whoever gets there the fastest compared to their maximum speed. So it's a way to get women more involved, get more into aviation, just have some fun, get the support network working. There's so many women in it. I've been wanting to do it for a while actually. It just never had the resources and this year we're doing it for the first time with a flying club. I'm really looking forward to it. There's all kinds of airplanes in the competition. There's like tiny airplanes, like ours. There's bigger airplanes. There's twin engines. Our airplanes are Piper Warrior II. It was made in 1984. It's a four seater, 160 horsepower engine. It has two GPS's in it actually. It has an engine monitor so those things are going to help us. The one main disadvantage we have is that we don't have an autopilot so we have to hand fly the airplane all through the country. So that makes it hard because it takes a lot more work to be precise. So what they have you do is they compare you to your handicap speed as opposed to each other. So the handicap speed is your maximum ideal speed. So you can get faster than that. That's great. Otherwise you try to get as close to that as possible. This year we're going from east to west which is more challenging than west to east. We'll be fighting the winds but we're just starting from Maryland and Frederick. And then we're going through Ohio, Indianapolis and then up north towards Iowa, Minnesota, back to Iowa. Going somewhere in Kansas, Texas, New Mexico. So we're finishing Santa Fe in New Mexico. So the thing I'm looking most forward to is meeting all the other women. Just because again we don't have many of us in aviation. 118 women this year of different ages, different experiences. That's going to be great just like developing those bonds. It will be four long days of flying. You know we're both female pilots. So we'll find things to talk about with them and just stay in this small cockpit for like four days.