Imagine soaring over Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium at 3,000 feet. Crossing over the Quad, the throng of students rushing to and from class is completely unaware of the plane flying high above them. While most students spend the day in lectures, quickly throwing on their backpacks and running to catch the bus, a small group of students get to soar.

However, the chance to take a flight over campus is not limited to only aviation students.

The Institute of Aviation’s Fun Flights program, taking place on two days in October, allows any University student to take a half-hour flight in one of the Institute’s 18 Piper Archer III aircraft, said Luke Karcher, a flight instructor and graduate of the aviation program.

The flights will be conducted by Karcher and his fellow instructors and will give students an aerial tour of campus and the surrounding area.

For students nervous about flying in a small plane, Karcher said the Institute’s safety record, with only one minor incident in recent years, “really speaks for how well we train our pilots out here.”

The Institute of Aviation, located at Willard Airport in Savoy, sees the Fun Flights program as not just a chance to show off their skills and equipment to the student body, but as a way to recruit new aviation majors to fight a recent drop in enrollment, Karcher said.

The Institute has lost 30 students since last year, a major hit for a department with only 230 students. Laura Gerhold, undergraduate academic advisor in the Institute said she links the drop in enrollment to the recent economic down turn.

“Enrollment has decreased slightly due to the economy and the decline in financial aid and a lot of our students have found that aviation can be kind of expensive,” Gerhold said.

The cost of Aviation 101 is an additional $4,299 on top of regular tuition. Each additional and optional training course and program can cost anywhere from $975, for Corporate Jet Pilot Orientation, to $6,172, for Aviation 200, Commercial Pilot I.

When they graduate, aviation students are ready to take jobs as pilots for private companies, airlines and the military, or to become flight instructors themselves. In addition to the degree program, the Institute also offers both the Professional Pilot Program, certifying students to become trained airline pilots, and a private pilot’s license program, which is open to all students at the University.

Flight school was not a priority for Karcher when he enrolled at the University as an architecture major in 2005. While aviation had long been a passion, Karcher said it did not seem to be the path he was headed on.

By the end of his freshman year, however, he felt he needed change.

That summer he took a flight in the Chicago area with a friend who was an instructor for the Institute of Aviation. Karcher said that flight and his experiences in Aviation 101 moved him to change majors. After graduating this summer, the University employed him as a flight instructor.

Karcher said he is leading an effort to “create awareness that the airport’s out here and that we’re welcoming students.”

The flights will take place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 14 and 24 at Willard Airport, and cost $65 per student.

“I would encourage anyone to come out here give it a shot, see the campus from a different perspective,” Karcher said.