NMC aviation team takes off for national women’s air race

A Cessna Skyhawk carrying two Northwestern Michigan College aviation students and an instructor rolled out of East Alton, Illinois, with Traverse City on its tail and a 2,400-mile national race ahead of it. The Cherry Capital Cruisers, NMC’s Team #33, joined the 49th annual Air Race Classic, a competition built for women pilots and one that runs June 23-26 from St. Louis Regional Airport to Mount Vernon Airport in Illinois.

The NMC lineup featured flight instructor Emma Dyer, student Grace Soneral and team lead Rachael Kornoely. Their aircraft, a Cessna Skyhawk 172SP, tail number N921BB, is dedicated to Bob Buttleman, a legendary NMC flight instructor and aviation program director. The team also carried ground support from Traverse City, where helpers were handling weather, airspace and logistics as the race began.

For NMC, the trip marked only its second entry in the Air Race Classic, extending a program history that first reached the race in 2019, when Hannah Beard of Interlochen and Jessi Martin of Maple City represented the college. That matters for a local aviation program that starts flight training in the first semester and has worked to expand its reach. NMC said its 2024 hangar expansion increased capacity by 66 percent, helping lift new-student enrollment from about 30 to 50 and adding eight aircraft to a fleet of 19.

The race itself is built around pressure and precision. Teams must include at least two women pilots and fly under visual flight rules during daylight hours only. The route spans about 2,400 statute miles and includes 8 or 9 timing points, turning the event into a test not just of endurance but of planning, navigation and execution.

Josh Shively, who has worked with the program, cast the race as a chance for students to put classroom and cockpit training to work in a public setting while also showing that women belong in aviation and in the industry. Women in Aviation at Northwestern Michigan College has said its mission is to get more women interested in aviation and help them along the way, a goal that fits naturally with a competition focused on women pilots.

For Grand Traverse County, the flight was more than a competition entry. It was a visible measure of how NMC continues to turn local students into working aviators, sending Northern Michigan talent into a national field while reflecting the strength of a training pipeline rooted in Traverse City.