I was only scheduled for one four-hour block today, and none of that was instruction time. I spent the morning finishing up the flight plan for a flight to Fleming-Mason to Huntington, West Virginia and back to Clermont. At 2 pm, I was at the airport. Matt double-checked the fuel and oil, then sent me off. Unfortunately, I could not get the engine to start, so Matt hopped in and somehow got it running.
The flight to Fleming-Mason is only about half an hour, and after landing, I taxied back around to take off again, admiring an old F-4 on the ramp as I passed. Huntington was farther away, and once in level flight, I began setting up the radios with their ATC frequencies.
About 20 nm out, I contacted Huntington Approach control and requested permission to land. The controller gave me a transponder code so he could see me on his screen, then handed me off to the tower controller. Huntington is apparently not very busy, because he cleared me to land when I was still 13 miles away in the opposite direction of landing. After landing, I requested two more full stop landings and then a departure back to Clermont. He cleared me for two more landings, and on one landing, I had to wait to land so a small airliner could depart. The final landing at Huntington marked my 100th landing.
When I was ready to leave the area, the controller gave me another squawk code for the transponder, and cleared me for takeoff. It was the longest leg of the trip back to Clermont, and Huntington Departure control gave me flight following, as well as Indianapolis Center and Cincinnati Approach. Flight following is when ATC stays in contact with you and tells you when other traffic is close by. I flew northwest alongside the Buckeye Military Operations Area back to Clermont, where I landed and parked the plane after nearly three hours of flight time.
Today's flying added 2.9 hours and 5 landings to the logbook, which brings the totals to 34.5 hours and 101 landings.
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