Indy.com reporter Konrad Marshall learns how to fly an airplane at Montgomery Aviation north of Zionsville with help from Chief Flight Instructor Par Gaston. (Matt Kryger / The Indianapolis Star)

Click here to watch a video of Konrad learning to fly at Montgomery Aviation in Zionsville

One look at the controls in the cockpit -- air speed indicator, artificial horizon, altimeter, direction gyro and turn coordinator -- was more than enough to shake me from my "Top Gun" daydreams.

This was apparently a 8basic, bread-and-butter plane, according to my guide for the day, Chief Flight Instructor Pat Gaston of Montgomery Aviation in Zionsville. The ride would be gentle, he said, not turbo-charged. The plane would be a docile beast -- forgiving and user-friendly. Like a Chevy.

But it wasn't a Chevy, of course.

It was a 2,550-pound aluminum-body Cessna 172 Skyhawk. The plane was ever-so-slightly more intimidating than a Silverado. And I was no Iceman.

The airplane itself isn't a great learning environment, Gaston said, noting my apprehension. Much of the flying process is explained on the ground, where it isn't as noisy and the learner is not as nervous. Gaston had already gone over much of it with me, explaining weather considerations, other people's flight plans, and checklists, checklists, checklists.

"If we can't do it safely," he said, "we don't do it at all."

We taxied onto the runway, steering the plane with pedals at our feet. You don't use your hands at all, which felt disconcerting, as if control was already out of grasp.

Within moments we were staring at the long runway, ready to throttle up the engine, and it was at this moment I was most nervous. Not because of takeoff. That would be Gaston's responsibility.

I was nervous because the 4-cyclinder, air-cooled 180-horsepower engine -- which can cruise at speeds of up to 130 miles per hour -- didn't sound like one. It sounded like a ride-on lawnmower.

But we built up speed, then pulled back on the yoke and guided the plane skyward. Once there, we used the ailerons on the wing to control banking, the elevators on the tail to control pitch, the rudder on the tail to control yaw (fishtailing), and the flaps on the wings to control lift and drag.

I followed what Gaston did on my set of controls as he made turns, banking this way and that, then straightening out. He showed me how effortlessly the plane rights itself. (When you take your hands off the controls, the plane isn't going to fall from the sky.) He even cut the engine at one point and told me that a man had fallen out of his plane recently in Florida, but the plane had kept flying for two miles.

I took the controls, making smooth banking turns, taking us over Lebanon and Sheridan, the cars on I-65 looking like Hot Wheels at 2,500 feet. In the distance was the Indy skyline, afternoon sunlight bouncing off the Pyramids and making a beacon of the RCA Dome roof.

We came back down to earth, and then took off again. Gaston called it a "touch and go," and I realized I'd never known where the term came from. It seemed funny, because I generally use "touch and go" when talking about a dicey situation, one in which you're a single event away from crashing and burning.

I was thankful to be on the ground. Having made it safely, I noticed a sign in Gaston's office that said it best.

"Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man. Landing is the first."

Come fly away

To take a steeply discounted introductory flight lesson -- ranging from $59 to $89 -- visit ProjectPilot.org, a new learn-to-fly initiative of the nonprofit Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association, which keeps a database of flight schools across the country.