I showed up to Lunken today with my flight plan prepared only to find out that there were slight changes in plans…. well, major changes in plans…. complete changes in plans.

Not only were we changing locations of our cross country, but we were going to be flying a four-seater Piper Cherokee with a passenger in back. I was very excited to fly the slightly bigger plane.

The Cherokee felt much heavier than the Skippers, probably because it is, and in addition we had an extra passenger in the back.

We took off from Lunken at exactly 16:00 and went out east towards KUNI where Ohio University is in Athens. We landed, with a touch and go at 17:00 and then turned north to go to Newark, which is just east of Columbus. That leg took about a half hour.

The reason for the passenger was that he had heard about a building that was shaped like a hand basket. And he thought it would be very neat to see it from the air. Well we found that basket, and it was that… a giant building with handles, very funny. I took a few pictures with Gary’s phone, so hopefully he’ll send those my way and I can post them. We landed and stopped for fuel at Newark. The uncontrolled airport was very quiet and laid back. They had cookies, which of course I sampled a few of :-)

Taking off from Newark, we headed back towards Cincinnati on the longest leg of our flight. Nothing of too much excitement happened. I did fly over a hot air balloon, as well as seeing a jet airliner fly above us (probably heading into Columbus). But total flight time for the cross country was 3.4 hours….. took quite the hit on the wallet.

I really enjoyed learning about and flying the Cherokee, it was exciting to try something new. Next on the flying agenda is night flight this week, followed by a night cross country. We’re going to do the Lunken -> Athens -> Portsmouth -> Lunken for the night cross country. Then after that I’m going to repeat the cross country, just solo. I think I’ve broken the 20 hour threshold, so that is pretty exciting for me.

After my lesson I went over to the bar at Wings with Dave, Sharon, and Gary to have a beer and chat. It was a good time. These folks have been in Cincinnati a very long time and know a lot of the history. It is very enjoyable listening to them.

That’s all for now, hope your weekend is going well!

Later!