Wait patiently and speak with measured thoughts. You will become recognized as an expert, and your opinion will be sought from far and wide. I checked my e- mail the other day to find that my advice was solicited to help clarify one of aviation's gray areas. A fellow read about the flight I made last spring, following the Susquehanna's every bend, and wanted to know how I decided that it was OK to fly that low. As a fairly new private pilot, he was intrigued.

I had been anointed as an expert on low altitude flight, a distinction akin to being a guy who can spend all evening in the taverns, yet consistently pass breathalyser tests on the way home. Since nobody is likely to be asking me how to fly a bulls- eye NDB approach anytime soon, I took the fame that was offered, and gave my best advice.

The regulations state that over sparsely settled terrain, which is what we have around here for the most part, you need only stay 500 feet above or away from any person or structure on the ground except for takeoff and landing. They go on to state that in any case, flight should be conducted high enough to prevent undue hazards to persons on the ground should the engine fail.

That is pretty broad discretion for something that is addictive as low altitude flight. The reason that there's no traffic jam at 500 feet has nothing to do with the whimsical laws of man, but everything to do with the immutable laws of nature. The higher you fly, the more likely you are to be able to glide to a good landing if the engine fails. From 500 feet, you have less than a minute to find a landing site somewhere within a mile, but from a more conservative 3000 feet, most little planes give you a glide angle that covers thirty square miles and a duration of over five minutes.

Low altitude flight is delightful, but you can never forget that the pursuit of these delights requires that you surrender a lot of your safety cushion. Contrary to much of the simplistic thinking that passes for contemporary wisdom, risk is something to be managed, not avoided entirely. A long and happy life flying airplanes is best realized by keeping an "out" for yourself, and limiting exposure to situations where there is "no place to go but down". I told the fellow to plan his route, pick his day, and give himself a delightful present. I reminded him though, that there is only one birthday and one Christmas per year.

I was uncomfortable that I had been sought out; identified as someone with special knowledge of forbidden fruits. I pondered these feelings one morning, chin on hand, as a wintry scene slid below me en route to Elmira. Flying can be pretty dull, especially when it is done well. The plane leaves the ground, drones on and on, eventually returning to the ground. When I write Plane Talk, I write about the exceptions to the rule of dull, and try to hint at all the places my mind wanders while the plane drones from departure to arrival.

Just being in the air brings me pleasure. Sometimes I will joke with family or friends as I get ready for work that Oooh boy! I'm going on an airplane ride tonight! Even the simplest of scenes is awe- inspiring compared to the average terrestrial view, and even the amorphous gray of flight through the clouds has a certain satisfaction that is difficult to experience elsewhere.

Whether I am sitting in the company's plane or my own plane, the sky around me absorbs every earthly worry. I often agonize about all the things that I should do instead of flying out to have lunch with the guys, but as soon as I am in the air, I have no doubt that I have done the right thing. I feel like I belong in the airplane, and that to be anywhere else is just a distraction. At work, the radio chatter that accompanies an instrument flight integrates fairly well with the flight itself, but I find it a tremendous imposition to do all the paperwork while I fly. I usually sightsee and catch up on the other stuff after landing.

I remember early one morning last September when I laid on a low wall that would become part of the cabin I have been building. It is on a hillside in a rolling woods, and I watched as the sun rose into the treetops way above me. It was the start of a clear calm and crisp day, and the red and yellow rays of the sun set the autumn leaves into a silent fire as I watched. The overflow pipe from the spring provided a gentle melody in between the bird songs that drifted among the trees.

I remember thinking that I was laying in a place that was just about as perfect as anyplace I have seen from the air. Maybe some people become addicted to flying because they can project themselves into all the interesting nooks and crannies... both on the ground and in the clouds... that can be seen as the plane flies along. A masterful painting draws the viewer into it, and a typical flight easily provides a whole gallery of tantalizing scenes.

We are humans, not androids, and we live on imagination. Sometimes, after all the proper considerations, it is worth the extra risk to drop down and salute a beautiful scene with a closer look.