Taking the sky road.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

FLY To help would-be business fliers get their wings, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has established Project Pilot with resources on what it takes to learn to fly. For information, on the Web go to www.projectpilot.org.

When Dennis McCallum needs to travel on business, he could fly commercial, but he'd rather fly himself.

So a few times each month, he drives out to the Eugene Airport, pulls his Piper Turbo Arrow out of the hangar and takes off.

McCallum, owner of Tumac Inc., a Lowell machine shop, said he likes the freedom, flexibility and plain fun of piloting his own plane on company business.

"I didn't start flying because of business," he said. "I started flying because of pleasure and discovered the business application. ... The business application is a real or imagined justification for something you enjoy doing."

Anecdotal evidence suggests that a growing number of business executives and owners are flying themselves on business, rather than submitting to the whims and indignities of commercial flight, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

The tight security measures imposed at the nation's commercial airports after Sept. 11 have prompted many business fliers to learn to fly, AOPA spokesman Chris Dancy said.

More than two-thirds of general aviation flight hours logged last year were for business purposes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. General aviation includes everything that isn't a military or commercial airline flight.

And business is the third most popular use of a private plane after recreational and instructional, accounting for nearly half of all hours logged, the AOPA says.

Mike Hennessey, president of Friendly Air Service at the Eugene Airport, said he's noticed a big increase in demand recently among business fliers who want to learn to fly.

"We probably get somebody at least once a week talking about perhaps purchasing a plane and doing exactly what you're talking about," he said. "It's more of a time element than anything else. A plane is like a time machine - it cuts down travel time and gets you where you want to go."

McCallum started flying in 1994, mainly for recreation.

But he was still a student pilot when he winged down to Susanville, Calif., to do some work for a logging equipment manufacturer. That opened his eyes to the advantages of flying himself.

"I do fly commercial, but commercial flight is limited," he said. "There are not a lot of commercial flights into Susanville," a city of 10,000 in northeast California that is about 80 miles from the nearest commercial airport in Reno, Nev.

More than 5,000 public-use airports are scattered around the United States, but airlines fly into only about 500, Dancy said.

"The advantage of general aviation is that it makes use of those other 4,500 or so airports," he said.

Flying himself also affords him greater flexibility than flying commercial, McCallum said. "You don't need to plan things weeks in advance," he said.

For example, he had a customer in Seattle who was getting ready to start production on some pellet stoves, but discovered that a computer-controlled feeder mechanism made by McCallum's company didn't work.

The customer called McCallum with the complaint about 8 a.m. McCallum examined the computer program, found the error, changed the program, and made new parts.

He drove to the airport, flew himself to Seattle, and walked into his customer's office about 5 p.m. with the new parts.

"That goes a long way toward customer satisfaction," he said.

McCallum flies as much as six to eight times a month. He figures it costs his corporation about $100 an hour to fly, but the more he flies the cheaper the hourly cost because of the fixed cost of insurance.

"You got to plug in a little fun to make it work" financially, he said. "If your time is worth anything it does pencil out."

Rising fuel prices haven't dampered his enthusiasm for flying on business, he said.

"The price of fuel has never affected my decision because if I need to go someplace, I need to go someplace, and you need to get there somehow," he said.

Another Eugene business owner, Niles Hanson, has been flying for about 15 years. Hanson owns Northwest Stamping, which makes stamps and machine components, and Rosen Sunvisor Systems, which makes sun visors for aircraft and automobiles.

He said that, because of the relative lack of commercial flight connections from Eugene, "it makes a lot of sense to fly for business."

If he wants to fly down to Indio, Calif., to visit a business he recently purchased, it would take him all day via a commercial airline. Flying himself in his Citation jet, he can be there in two hours, take care of business and be back the same day, he said.

Dan Gordon, a Eugene attorney, has been flying himself for about 10 years.

He figures he flies close to 300 hours a year in his six-seat Cessna P210, about 80 percent of which is for business.

"If I have an arbitration in eastern Oregon, in Enterprise, it would take me eight hours to get there by car," he said. "I get there in two hours flying."

Plus, flying commercial has become a chore, he said.

"You take off your clothes, you take off your shoes, you scrunch into that little seat, someone's elbow is in your ribs - who needs it?" he said.