Introductory flight program available

BE A PILOT lesson gets novices up in the air

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Learning to pilot a single-engine plane is not for the faint of heart -- nor of stomach.

During a sample flying lesson in a 2003 Cessna 172 SP near the North Las Vegas Airport, for example, the thermometer in the cockpit reads 102 degrees, a temperature 24-year-old flight instructor Peter Rampaart cheerfully describes as "balmy." A slight wind also has kicked up, which, in a cabin roughly the size of the interior of a Geo Metro, translates to plenty of not-so-subtle turbulence in the air. And, shortly post take-off, Rampaart tells you that after just a few minutes of instruction he will turn over control of the aircraft to you. No pressure or anything.

It's enough to make a first-time student weak in the knees, if not the stomach.

Rampaart, a clean-cut, blond Minnesotan who came to the valley in February for the "good flying weather," is all calm reassurance. In his seven years of flying, he tells you, he has never had a problem.

"Flying is the safest form of transportation," he says. "We're real safe. There's never any real danger."

Rampaart decided he wanted to be a pilot after seeing the movie "Top Gun" as a fourth-grader. A self-described "control freak," he has always disliked commercial flight because he's not the one in the cockpit. Now he works for North Las Vegas' West Air Aviation.

Today's flight is a special $49 deal, courtesy of the national BE A PILOT nonprofit educational program run by General Aviation Team 2000, a coalition of the aviation community, to increase public understanding of aviation and encourage average people to learn to fly.

Most lessons will set you back quite a bit more. Instruction rates run about $40 an hour, and aircraft rental prices range from $54 to $190, depending on the model. A minimum 40 hours of flight instruction and supervised practice flying is required to earn a private pilot certificate. That can add up to between $3,000 and $7,000, said BE A PILOT spokesman Gary Frisch.

"A private pilot license is a lifetime investment," he said, adding that there are nearly 300,000 private pilots in the United States alone.

The special $49 introductory flight, offered at five local flight schools in North Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Henderson, is an inexpensive way to discover whether that kind of investment is right for the aspiring pilot.

There's just one problem with encouraging average people to learn to fly -- some of them just don't have the stomach for it. Rampaart says he's prepared for that.

"It happens," he says. "We keep the barf bags handy."

But if you are one of the unfortunate souls who ends up needing one on your inaugural flight over, say, Lone Mountain, you may discover the "barf bag" -- actually a see-through Ziploc baggie -- isn't quite as handy as you might like.

And transporting the full bag as discreetly as possible across the tarmac on your way back to the airport after the abridged flight may be enough to discourage you from ever flying again -- whether as pilot or passenger.

Again, Rampaart reassures. "It happens to a lot of people," he said. "It's no big deal."

And he thinks learning to fly is worth anything, even extreme motion sickness.

"It's a new challenge every time," he said, back inside the air-conditioned West Air office. "That's what I love about it. I don't think I could be in an office from 9 to 5 every day. We have the best office view in the world."

Rampaart will be enjoying that view a lot in the near future. He's an officer in the Army National Guard and will ship out for duty in Iraq on Oct. 1.

For more information about the BE A PILOT program and a list of local flight schools that offer it, visit www.beapilot.com or call 1-888-BE-A-PILOT.