INDIANA, Pa. -- With confidence brimming, 9-year-old Michaela Shaw had no fears about her flight.

"It's almost impossible for anything to go wrong, and I've been on a plane before," she said proudly, just minutes before boarding a red, white and blue four-seater Cessna at the Indiana County/Jimmy Stewart Airport.

Her last flight was at age 5 when she went with her family to Disney World in Orlando aboard a jet. But this time, Michaela was riding by herself, in a small propeller plane, right next to pilot Jared Aicher.

Aicher stopped in Indiana as part of his Eagle Flight program, designed to teach children about the wonders of flight and exploration.

Three children, all third-graders at East Pike Elementary School in Indiana, were selected as members of the Experimental Aircraft Association's Young Eagles program to fly with Aicher, 33, yesterday.

Though the plane is a four-seater, Aicher removed the two back seats to make room for all his gear for the 33-day trip that will visit all 48 contiguous states and islands in the Bahamas and Caribbean. That means that only one child can fly at a time, but it also means every child gets to sit up front at the controls.

Michaela eagerly volunteered to go first. As she watched her friend walk to the plane, Lauren Peiffer, 8, who had never flown before, covered her face with her hands. Her father, Jeff, kept reassuring her that the flight would be great.

When Michaela emerged from her 15 minutes in the air, she rushed over to tell her friends how much fun it was.

"I saw a bunch of lakes," she said, the smile never leaving her face. "It was really neat.

"It was sort of like a bumpy roller coaster, but only in the air."

Her favorite part, she said, was taking off.

"I was finally starting an adventure," she said. "When we landed, I thought, 'Can we do it again?' "

Rachel Floyd, 9, who brags that she has flown 18 times on commercial planes, said she wasn't a bit nervous about flying in the Cessna.

"I think it could be the same -- like a big plane but smaller," she said.

As Rachel awaited her turn, she asked her mom if she could eat the packed lunch she brought with her. As Debbie Floyd reached into the blue lunch bag, she changed her mind.

"I looked at those Doritos and decided we better wait until after (her flight)," her mom said.

But when Rachel got back to land, she said her stomach was fine.

Her father asked what she saw.

"Stuff," she responded in typical 9-year-old fashion.

When prompted a bit further, she continued, "a lake, a pond, cars that looked like puny ants."

When Lauren, who was the last of the girls to go up, returned from her flight smiling sheepishly, Michaela bombarded her with questions.

"Hey, Lauren, was it bumpy?" she asked.

"Yes," Lauren replied.

"Were you scared?" Michaela asked.

"No, not really," she answered.

Lauren said her flight was "fine," and she liked everything about it.

"I just liked looking around," she said. "Those cars look like toys."

And that, Aicher said, is the response of almost every child he flies.

"Every one of them have their heads pressed against the window the whole time," he said. "I'm always worried about them not liking the bumps, and I look over, and there's just big grins."

So far, the program has stopped in 15 states in four days. No children have backed out, and none of them have thrown up, either, Aicher said.

"When I was a kid, we didn't have anything like this," he said. "I'd just hang off a chain-link fence and watch the planes.

"We're not trying to make pilots out of all these kids. We just want to open their eyes to the world."