It had been a couple of weeks since I had flown, and my in-laws had the airplane scheduled on a beautiful day. They were looking for ideas to go somewhere, so I offered ( to tag along) to fly with them for Richard to practice flying into class C airspace in Springfield. They were keen to the idea, but I had to clear some work hurdles in order to be able to get away. That all worked out, so we were a go!
Richard was well prepared, and he had made notes very similar to me on frequencies and the order we would need them in. The airport also had a couple of NOTAM’s for a closed runway and some closed taxiways.
Once we got en-route, we called center to get flight following and got the first minor surprise on the trip. KC Center was not receiving the encoded altitude from our transponder. we did a little troubleshooting in the
As we were getting into the Springfield area, we got our second surprise. We had been expecting runway 20 from our previous clearance, but the controller amended our clearance for us to turn and setup for the runway that had been closed. So it was back open. Not a problem, we had all the information we needed, and that runway would mean that we had less taxi time to the ramp.
We took a break in the lounge, rested up, and talked about what to expect on the way back. We had a good flight back.