Into the wild blue yonder.

Teens take off for the flight of their lives.

As the small plane sped down the runway for takeoff, 13-year-old Erin Baca of Bosque, NM, felt a little scared. For the first time in her life, she was sitting in the cockpit, right next to the pilot. And soon after takeoff, Erin was going to fly the plane herself.

It didn't help, Erin recalls, that when the plane lifted into the air, her stomach started "going weird." But by the time she had taken the controls, her fear had disappeared. "You kind of forget everything up there--you feel more free," she says.

Erin got her her chance to fly through a program called Young Eagles. In honor of the 100-year anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight, Young Eagles pilots across the country plan to treat one million kids (ages 8-17) to free flights by the year 2003--and let the kids do the flying.

After taking a Young Eagles flight two years ago, 17-year-old Jason Johnson of Nesconsett, NY, was hooked. Every time he flies, he says he experiences the thrill he felt on that first flight. "It's very peaceful and at the same time very exhilarating."

BIRD OR PLANE?

Taking the controls was the biggest kick, recalls 18-year-old Craig Campbell of Clarington, PA. "You can feel the hum of the engine. It's like you're riding waves of air--you're like a bird

in a way."

The desire to fly like birds is what first inspired people to build airplanes. The Wright brothers and other inventors even studied the flight of birds to design their flying machines, says Young Eagles pilot Mary Ann Turney.

It's no surprise then to find that airplanes operate on the same principles of physics as birds do. Birds, flying insects, and airplanes all rely on a seemingly magical upward force called lift to take flight.

Like pilots, Young Eagles fibers learn that lift comes from the shape of wings, and the way air flows over them.

If you look at a cross section of a wing, explains Craig, you'll see that "the wing is curved on top and flat on the bottom." "Fly" a shape like this yourself (see "Lift in Action," p. 22) and you'll really get a feel for how lift works.

What happens is this: As the wing shape moves through the air (or as you blow air over it), the curved upper portion forces the air above the wing to push into the air flowing even higher up. Like a calm river squeezed by a boulder into a narrower channel, the airstream squished above the wing speed up.

Below the wing, the air isn't squeezed (or speeded up) as much because the bottom surface of the wing is flat.

The difference is important, says Turney. Why? Because according to, Bernoulli's principle, as the flow of a fluid (any liquid or gas) speeds up, its pressure drops. That means the pressure of the fast-moving air above the wing drops while the pressure beloe remains higher. "The higher pressure on the bottom of the wing pushes the plane up," says Young Eagle Craig.

As long as that upward force, the lift, is greater than the downward pull of gravity on the plane, the aircraft will climb (see photo, p. 21).

Of course, to get lift, you have to have air flowing over the wings, says Turney. For that to occur, the plane has to keep moving forward and that's where the engine and propeller come in. Together, they generate thrust, a force that speeds the plane forward down the runway. The forward force of thrust must be powerful enough to overcome the backward push of drag, or air resistance.

Drag was a problem for early aviators. Their engines lacked the power needed to get them moving fast enough to generate lift. On his first flight in 1903, at Kitty Hawk, NC, Orville Wright lifted off the ground for just 12 seconds. His plane flew only 118 feet, less than the length of a Boeing 747 jet.

WE HAVE LIFTOFF

Young Eagle Erin felt the effect of drag during her flight when pilot Pat Patterson cut back the engine power. The plane slowed down, but continued to fly. "It was pretty neat," recalls Erin.

Patterson cuts back engine power on Young Eagles flights because he wants to show Erin and the others how safe flying is. He points out that a small plane that's lost all engine power a mile up will continue to fly for 10 miles before touching the ground. That's usually plenty of time to find an open area and to land safely.

Assured of their safety, most Young Eagles feel the way Craig did at the end of his first flight: "I didn't want it to end," he says. "The only thing I had any regrets about was landing."

He and Erin both plan to fly their own planes some day. And Jason has already decided to become a commercial airline pilot. He recently earned his license to fly small private planes.

All three teens had flown as passengers on commercial airlines before, but they say flying a small plane is completely different. "When you're in a big jet, you feel like you're in a bus," says Erin, "but in a little plane, you can feel more of the movement," especially when the controls are in your hands.