The second time I saw Fred Hughes, his image passed quickly through the corner of my left eye, a speed-blurred figure of a cowboy leaning against a tailgate, shooing a fly from his face. Hughes's truck was parked next to his airstrip, a red-dirt affair that was, at the moment, rising toward me much too quickly.

I hauled back on the Cessna's control column, but the airplane hit the dirt with all three wheels and bounced skyward, pitching forward and yawing to the left "a bit sickeningly," as Hughes would later put it. As the craft settled again toward the ground, I got the nose up and pointed to the end of the runway and eased the plane down on the rear wheels.

Taxiing back toward the truck, I noticed Hughes rummaging around in a cooler. I cut the engine and hopped down to the dusty earth, where his outstretched hand held an icy bottle of Coopers Original Pale Ale.

"No offense, mate," Hughes said, "but I'm glad it's not my plane you're learning in....