Our altitude was about 2,000 feet and I was sitting in the left seat of the small airplane vaguely heading for the end of the runway at Bergstrom. My flight instructor, Craig Tompkins, Chief Flight Instructor of Lone Star Wings said, "I'm going to let you land this plane on your own."

"The hell you are." I thought.

But Craig inspired confidence and he didn't look the least bit nuts or self-destructive, so I trusted his decisions, just not my flying skills which were less than an hour old.

Earlier in the day he'd reminded me, while showing me how to pre-flight check a Cessna 172, that take-offs are optional. We need to know the aircraft is in good shape before we choose to go. However, once we're up, landings are mandatory. So one way or another we were going to meet the ground. I just didn't think I'd be having much to do with landing the little four-seat airplane we optionally took off in.

I've always loved the idea of flying an airplane but I just never got around to it. Too expensive, too time consuming, too something, always stopped me from looking into it. But the aviation industry came up with an idea for people like me. It's called the "Be a Pilot" program. Anyone can sign up for a half-price first lesson to see if getting a pilot's license is anything they want to pursue. At $49 it's hard to pass up the chance to be at the controls of an airplane.

So far I'd been doing pretty well on my flying lesson. I'd worked on the up and down part of controlling the Cessna, even doing shallow and steep banking turns, but I was a little weaker in the right and left lining up with a compass direction or in this case with a runway. So as we were sinking towards Bergstrom's runway I was overcorrecting one way and then the other. Craig gave a little control help.

I was surprised to find out general aviation is working to attract people because it went through a serious decline in recent years. In 1997 the number of registered pilots in the US hit a thirty-year low. Product liability lawsuits nearly wiped out the industry. Major players like aircraft maker Cessna just stopped manufacturing airplanes altogether for a while.

But congress enacted legislation that limited manufacturers liability and the aviation industry started supporting the introductory approach of the non-profit "Be A Pilot" program. Slowly things have been, well, getting off the ground again.

We were dropping at a steady rate towards the runway. Craig said we just power down until we sink onto the runway, that's how a landing works. Sinking from the sky to the ground, that was a new concept for me. I looked over at Craig briefly, nope, still not looking crazy.

A lot of people, 66% of all men and 34% of all women according to a 1993 Gallup pole, have an interest in learning to fly. Although to me it seemed a rich person's game. I learned it takes, not a pittance, but not a fortune either, to get the first level license for flying under Visual Flight Rules. You can go on from there to earn an Instrument rating, multiple engine rating, and other ratings right up to commercial airline pilot. So there is no upper end to what you can spend, especially if you are buying airplanes, but entry level isn't that daunting. Once you get a license you can rent a small plane for $60-$100 an hour, about what therapy costs by the way.

It takes somewhere between ten and twenty hours of flying with an instructor, and some ground school learning about rules, regulations, navigation, communication and the like, to get the skill-set needed to fly solo. At that point you go up alone, with a student license, and continue to practice. The minimum total hours for the license is forty but most students are in the fifty to seventy hour range before they get fully licensed.

According to Drew Steketee, the CEO of the "Be a Pilot" program, most people think, according to research done in 1996, that it takes at least a two year college degree if not a four year degree. In fact you do a private pilot training in the space of three months to a year on average and nationally the cost varies from about $3000 to $7000 dollars depending on your location and the amount of time you take. No degree necessary.

The license is good for a lifetime as long as you pass a simple medical exam from a neighborhood doctor who is approved by the FAA. The medical is every three years if you are under forty and every two years for over forty. Every couple of years you go up for a check ride with an instructor but they can't revoke your license although they can ask for extra training.

As I banked right to line up with the runway I was reminded again how the skill set for earth bound automobile drivers is foreign set of skills for the sky. It is not like driving a car. Let me repeat that, it is very much not like driving a car.

For one thing, just driving around on the ground you steer the airplane with your feet by moving the pedals that control the rudder or tapping on the right or left brake on the top of the rudder pedals to pull the airplane one way or the other.

That's just on the ground. But up in the air you have that pesky added vertical dimension to deal with. And then there is yaw, or think of a dog walking where the back end is out of line with the front end and the whole dog is moving a little askew down the road. Airplanes do that too. Pitch, how the nose of the aircraft is pointed up or down, figures in, as does roll, speed, altitude, power and heading. It's a lot to track the first time out. And physically the feel of controlling an airplane is a little like riding a bicycle with no hands. You lean a lot to get around.

Of course learning all those new skills is where the fun comes in. I learned, in contrast to my watching movies with pilots flying, that you fly a lot with power, more power the plane goes up, less power the plane goes down. I thought you just yank on the yoke (it's not a steering wheel) to go up, or slam it down to go down. You can of course but at some point you go, if you yank, in the direction of stalling the aircraft (which means it's not going fast enough to maintain lift). That would be in the direction of dropping out of the sky. Just slamming the joke forward will lower the altitude. But it also increases the speed so that's in the direction of ripping the wings off.

But the danger of messing up in a Cessna 172 is pretty small. When I was fidgeting all over the sky in the practice area near Bastrop Craig told me to just take my hands and feet off the controls. The airplane went right into straight and level flight all on its own.

The physical part of flying is easy, in my opinion, compared to the other stuff you need to know. Like, where am I? How do I approach an airport without causing a mess and drifting in front of a 747? Where are the no left turn signs and traffic lights and how do I drive around on the ground? And what about all that mumbly radio talk?

But that, Craig reminded me, all comes with study. Some of it is getting a lot easier, like navigation, with computers calculating location, distances and flying times. Satellite navigation and little maps on the dashboard or on your hand-held unit will let you know where you are at all times. Pretty soon it might be like flying a video game anyway.

Communicating on the radios seems confusing but is very precise and clear when you understand it. You don't have to give a speech or anything, just share concise information about weather, permissions to move around, transponder squawk codes, barometric pressure to set your altimeter , so okay, it's a little complicated but you can get used to it.

Flying, real flying, not fighter pilot movies with Tom Cruise, is a polite business where you let everyone know what you are doing and you definitely don't cut in line just because you want to. It's not like MOPAC or I-35. Cutting in front of a landing passenger jet, well, need I say more.

We settled on the runway pretty gently, or so I thought, and I promptly veered left. Again a little help, graciously accepted. We taxied to the parking area by Signature Aviation where a lot of the general aviation action takes place at Bergstrom.

Again I snaked along trying again to get a feel for steering with my feet. I don't think I did too badly. Craig wasn't pale or hyperventilating or anything although he did mention at one point to watch my wing tips because it was easy to lose track of an airplane's width when you're tooling around on the ground. That would have been embarrassing, and expensive, ripping off a wing.

I got us into a parking spot and Craig said, "Shut her off." By this time I even knew where the ignition was since I'd had to start the plane, and then just before takeoff checked the magnetos, right and left, with that same switch.

By the time we had the airplane tied down and wandered back to the Lone Star Aviation offices I realized how much, and how sensibly, Craig had slid some knowledge into me. Other than working the radios I'd done everything a real pilot would do, the pre-flight check, starting the plane, taxiing, climbing out, setting a heading, holding altitude, turning and vaguely landing.

And so I had completed my first flight and actually flew an airplane with my own hands and feet. This was more fun than I'd had in a long time. Clearly, I realized, flying is an extravagance for me. I don't have any real need for a pilot's license.

Then, walking away from Lone Star Wings to get into my truck and hit the traffic again, I had this little thought. I could just take one more lesson, just to go up again, just once more. Just for fun.

For more information on the Be A Pilot program call 1.888.BEAPILOT or look them up at www.beapilot.com where you can register for a $49 introductory flight certificate you can present at almost 1700 flight schools around the country for your first lesson. For Lone Star Wings flight instruction, call Craig Tompkins at 512.530.7022