Below is the track of today's cross-country.  To orient you, the big blue concentric circles to the right middle of the page is the airspace around Boston's Logan Airport.  To the Northwest of Logan Airport -  inside the the concentric purple circles is Manchester Airport in New Hampshire.  To the Southwest - left-hand edge near the bottom - in the concentric purple circles is Hartford's Bradley Airport. To the southeast - the bottom right-hand side in the concentric magenta circles is Providence, Rhode Island and the T.F. Green Airport.

Within this frame.... where the cross-hairs are at #1 is Worcester Airport.  The flight today took us from Worcester Airport to #2 - the area a bit northwest of Manchester Airport, (Concord New Hampshire airport is approx 10 miles to the northeast).  From #2, we flew southwest to Gardner Airport #3, (Gardner, MA)... and from #3, back to our starting point, #4(and #1) - Worcester Airport.

Here's the departure from Worcester Airport... just took off from the long runway at the right of the page, which is Runway 29. 

Here's another shot off the right wing, as we fly away from Worcester....

Here's a look out the left-side of the plane towards Mount Wachusett as we approach our course-line which will take us north towards Concord. Mount Wachusett is an important landmark for pilots in this area.

Here, we're on the course-line towards Concord and have passed our first checkpoint (Sterling Airport) and have Fitchburg Airport off the nose, in the distance...

... and closing in on Fitchburg...

As we approach Fitchburg Airport, here's a look out the left-hand side of the aircraft towards another landmark in the distance... Mt. Monadnock...

Here we've passed Fitchburg Airport... it's behind us, off our right wing now, and we're looking for our next checkpoint... its not easy to find...

Having passed Fitchburg Airport... we're still looking for our next checkpoint... we use highways as a reference point to help locate it.  If we're the least bit off the course-line we won't spot it...

Ahhh... found it... our next checkpoint... is Brookline Airport... a <very> small and un-notable airport... difficult to spot from the air... made notable only by the fact that it is on the course-line to Concord from Worcester, and they've recently installed some red-roofs on the surrounding buildings, making it a little easier to spot from the air.  Yeah, I know what you're 'gonna say... it looks hard to miss, well, we're only at around 3,000 feet here.  Try spotting it in haze from 5,500.  This runway is only 1,900 feet long, compared to the one we took-off from, which was 7,000 feet.

Here's another one of Brookline Airport right under the left wing....  I took these so I could prove to my instructor, Jeff, that I didn't miss it after all!    Oh, p.s. 'forgot to mention, all along the way, we're tuning our com (communications) radio to the CTAFs (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency) for the local airports along the way so we can avoid other aircraft in the area.

Now that we're past Brookline... looking way in the distance... we can see some white specs on the mountain ahead of us...

These white specs... are an important landmark.  These are radomes... at the New Boston Tracking Station, which is located in New Boston, New Hampshire.  These serve as our guideposts to Concord.  See the two mountains directly behind the radomes...  that form the shape of a saddle???  Once we fly through/over that saddle... we should have Concord Airport (New Hampshire) in sight, about 10 miles to the northeast.

duhhhhh.  Reading glasses over the sunglasses.  'Gotta compare what we see outside the window to what we see on the chart.

I should have taken a photo out the right hand window... cause its a big landmark off in the distance:  Manchester, NH airport.  Only, about the time we get this close to the radomes, we gotta get out of there... because we're closing in on Manchester's Class C Airspace.  We have to stay clear of that airspace, unless we're cleared into it by Manchester Approach Control.

Anyway, here's what Manchester Airport looks like (I didn't take the photo - thanks to Airnav.com for the photo.)  p.s. if we had been this close to the airport without first getting cleared into the airspace, we would have been in <major-big> trouble.

Turning around after spotting the radomes in New Boston, and staying clear of Manchester Airspace, we tune our nav (navigation) radio to the Gardner VOR and follow the nav-indicator southwest to Gardner Airport. At the same time, we now tune our com radio to the CTAF for Gardner so we can monitor traffic and broadcast our intentions. 

Below, we've landed at Gardner and are taxing back to the runway for takeoff.

More shots of Gardner...

And still more of Gardner...

Now, we're at the end of the taxiway, facing due south, about to turn onto  Runway 36 for takeoff, but first we have to do our pre-takeoff checklist, and our instrument checks.

Everything looks good.... fuel pump is "on" for takeoff...

Here, we're on Runway 36 (3,000 feet long)... next we'll bring the engine to full throttle and accelerate down the runway, and if all goes well, we'll rotate at 60 knots...

Now, we've safely rotated, have climbed out of Gardner Airport's airspace, and are climbing past 3,000 feet, turned towards the south.  Note the pitched-up nose attitude and limited visibility out the front.

Leveling off somewhat, we're at 3,100+ feet now and still climbing.

Having flown now for 10 minutes, we've now passed an important landmark on the way home - Wachuset Mountain, and we have Worcester Airport in sight ahead of our left wing.  We're checking ATIS for weather.  Soon we'll call Worcester Tower: "Worcester Tower, Warrior 3572-Zulu is 6 to the West, level at 3,000 feet for landing Worcester with Information Alpha". 

<Worcester Tower>:"Warrior 3572-Zulu, Worcester Tower, enter the left-downwind pattern for Runway 29-er.  Call at midfield."

<Warrior 3572-Zulu>:"Worcester Tower, 72-Zulu is midfield for 29-er."

<Worcester Tower>:"Warrior 3572-Zulu, cleared to land."

<Warrior 3572-Zulu>:"Cleared to land, 72-Zulu".
 

Upon touchdown:

<Worcester Tower>:"Warrior 3572-Zulu, exit taxiway Foxtrot, contact Ground."

<Warrior 3572-Zulu>:"Taxiway Foxtrot, to Ground, 72-Zulu".

<Warrior 3572-Zulu>:"Worcester Ground, Warrior 3572-Zulu, clear of Runway 29-er on Taxiway Foxtrot".

<Worcester Ground>:"Warrior 3572-Zulu, Cross Runway 31, taxi to ramp via Foxtrot/Bravo."

<Warrior 3572-Zulu>:"Cross 31, Foxtrot/Bravo to ramp, thanks and good day".

Hopefully the Temporary Flight Restriction to Concord will be lifted soon, and the cross-country solo to Concord will be behind me.

'Hope you enjoyed the flight and that you'll come back and see us soon!

More soon!