I am an airline aficionado.

To get my undivided attention, just start a conversation on anything to do with airplanes. Planes downright fascinate me.

On March 10, 1985, I had my first commercial flight, after spending years looking at planes take off and land or drawing white lines high up in the sky.

As if to create a nice symmetry, a pilot friend of mine called me up the other day when the weather was at its best.

“You want to go flying today?” he asked. I did not hesitate to jump at this grand opportunity of a lifetime.

While driving to the airport, something came up about the date, and to my surprise, I realized that it was March 10, 2009.

Wow: 24 years ago I had my first flight on a jumbo jet with 300 people, and a few minutes from now, I will be going up on a 4-seater plane with two people. What a wonderful contrast, I mused. What an anniversary!

We flew around the Puget Sound for nearly two hours. And we had a blast.

I hardly have any tolerance for people who don’t travel outside their immediate communities to see other parts of the country or the world, but for Washingtonians, I will excuse them any day.

This state has so many jaw-dropping points of interest, there’s hardly an incentive to visit anywhere else.

Some 15 years ago, Julie D. missed her flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong. Her only other option for a connection was via Seattle.

She huffed and puffed about coming to the Emerald City, but after craning her neck looking down from the plane on the verdant landscape, she was smitten. Within two weeks after returning from vacation, she asked for a transfer, and moved to the Pacific Northwest.

Now I can truly understand why she was able to make a major move like that in just a short time.

I’ve always told my visitors to try their best to book a day flight when coming to Seattle so that they can capture some of nature’s most breathtaking sites.

In fact, the awe-inspiring aerial view was one of the factors that spurred my interest to move here from New York City more than seven years ago.

After spending five days here in April 2001, traipsing over to Vancouver, B.C., I became enamored with the region.

Six months later, I moved to beautiful Federal Way. But less than a week after my arrival here, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. I had survivor’s guilt for months. And you could not pay me enough money to go back on any airplanes.

I resorted to being that little boy, watching them draw white lines again in the sky. But I am glad that all of that has changed, or else I would have missed my recent two-man flight around the Puget Sound.

One of the highlights during the trip was to fly over Federal Way, where I was able to point out landmark buildings and streets. Now, without being partial, Federal Way from the air is extremely beautiful. Everything is laid out so meticulously. I am truly proud to call it home. I wonder what a NASA rendition of the area would look like.

Merism is very much at work here: Large and small, night and day, hot and cold. One Wednesday night, the skies were clear again, and I was asked once more if I wanted to go flying.

Well, I had seen the beauty of the area during the day, so a night view, I reckoned, would round out the ultimate experience. That nocturnal flight did not disappoint the least.

What I usually get within the last five minutes of a flight on a commercial jet, is what I got for nearly four hours during both trips.

Joy-flying on small planes, I now know, can be contagious. It reminds me very much like going to the amusement park as a kid: The moment you hop off your favorite ride, you are back in line for yet another fix.

Some two years ago, my friend briefed me on some of the intricacies of aviation. One cardinal rule, he said, was that pilots are trained never to trust how their bodies feel in flight. Instead, they should trust their instruments panel.

In the case of flying through heavy clouds, not seeing where you’re going, your eyes and ears could potentially fool you. But the instruments panel will never lead you astray. That was quite an awakening for me.

His instructor once told him while in flight to close his eyes for a few seconds and describe what he was feeling. The student pilot said that he felt as though the plane was going sideways and backward, and myriad other sensations.

But when the instructor asked him to open his eyes and look at the instruments panel, the plane was as steady as could be.

That was the other reason why I was so eager to go up, too: To see the celebrated instruments panel at work.

I came back with a newfound message: When you’re covered under life’s dark clouds, don’t panic. Just keep your eyes focused on your instruments panel.

In the meantime, I’m trying to remain grounded, ever looking skyward until my next aeronautical thrill.