“These things are tiny little planes,” said Trevor Searls, flight instructor for Great Lakes Air in Alpena, reaching for the ignition of the Cessna 172 trainer airplane. “You get nice and comfy with all the neighbors.”

Chrome dials, a pair of yokes for in-air steering, and foot pedals for both pilot and passenger outfit the small, yellow plane recently put to work training future pilots at the air charter service at the Alpena County Regional Airport.

After 15 or so years of no flight school in Alpena, Great Lakes Air in May began to offer flight instruction, catering to northern Michigan residents with an itch to take to the skies.

Prospective pilots come in all makes and models, from teenagers to retirees, said Searls. Some eager young people manage to fit in the minimum of 40 hours of flight instruction before they even get their driver’s license.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Alpena houses, as seen from above on Thursday.

Folks contemplating pursuing a pilot’s license can take a discovery flight, getting the feel of soaring 2,000 feet above Northeast Michigan with open skies under their wings.

Many are quickly smitten and decide to come back for more.

After venturing into the air, seeing the familiar sights of home from a different perspective, “it’s easy to catch the bug,” Searls said.

***

The propeller hums to life, and the plane taxis forward. Light-feeling, as though it belongs in the air, it motors upward, jolting a bit as a stray wind catches it.

News Photo by Julie Riddle The controls of a trainer airplane used by Great Lakes Air to train new pilots at the Alpena County Regional Airport, seen on Thursday.

Trees and buildings begin to shrink, and the horizon swells with a great lake, a city tucked into its embrace.

That’s Alpena, the pilot says, promising a closer look.

Squares and squiggles become houses and roads as the plane glides toward the city that looks at once strange and familiar.

You scan for landmarks. Wildcat Stadium. Washington Avenue, or perhaps it’s Bagley Street. The green swirls of Alpena Wildlife Sanctuary. The hospital, surprisingly elegant from above. The dramatic and pretty 9th Avenue dam, which you’ve never really noticed before.

There’s the police station, the post office, your workplace. You wonder what the people inside are doing, if they know you’re right above them, floating in the sky.

News Photo by Julie Riddle A lighthouse on an island north of Alpena, as seen from above on Thursday.

Now enormous patches of dirt and sharp quarry cliffs, reminiscent of the American Southwest, slip behind you as you fly north of the city at 130 miles per hour.

Trees upon trees, interspersed with green and brown ponds — or lakes, perhaps; from high above, size is deceiving — bunch below, ribboned with streams scraggling their way to the white-waved water of Lake Huron.

In Thunder Bay, the water is 10 shades of mottled blue. On a still day, shipwrecks lay exposed under that water, easily visible from the air, the pilot says.

Islands in the distance are suddenly no longer distant. A lighthouse, red and white, proves humans sometimes inhabit the small swaths of land that look so wild, their feet sliding underwater in Caribbean hues.

This, you ask yourself — this is Alpena? This is where I spend my days, the city and the place that I thought I knew?

News Photo by Julie Riddle Sugar Island, north of Alpena, as seen from above on Thursday.

The pilot turns the plane’s nose back toward the airport, and you look as long as you can at the city you suddenly love in a new way. A red car slides by on a gray street, its driver unaware of being part of a living, breathing piece of art.

Firewood rests in stacks in the yard of a house surrounded by trees, invisible to everyone but you. In Lake Winyah, a fisherman looks up from his boat, watching you watching him.

“When you’re down there, you don’t notice it,” the pilot says. “But it’s beautiful from up here.”

News Photo by Julie Riddle Trevor Searls, flight instructor for Great Lakes Air in Alpena, flies over Alpena on Thursday.