The best part of flying is the last five minutes when it's time to land the plane. At least that's the best part for Jeff Seely of Nephi because it is the scariest part. Seely says landing is like flying by the seat of his pants.

Seely went to flight school at Utah Valley State College with ambitions of becoming a commercial airline pilot but found that there weren't a lot of jobs. He now just flies for pleasure.

"There's no thrill greater than flying an airplane," Seely said.

Nationaly, Seely is one of a dwindling breed. The popularity of hobby piloting is spiraling downward across the country.

According to statistics kept by the Federal Aviation Administration, the number of pilots who fly for recreational use has been steadily decreasing for the past 10 years.

However, in Utah County, general aviation appears to be alive and well.

"Our aviation at this airport's booming," said Tom Woodhouse, airport manager for the Springville-Spanish Fork Airport.

Woodhouse said that it is probably due to the population boom in Utah County. According to the census, Utah County is growing at a faster rate the United States in general.

Steve Gleason, manager of the Provo Airport, hasn't noticed a downward trend either.

The number of student pilots has been dropping across the country, though again Utah County bucks the trend.

Mario Markides, the associate director of flight operations at Utah Valley State College, said enrollment at UVSC is steady and graduates have no trouble finding jobs.

Flight training began at UVSC in 1994. They had one aircraft and seven flight students. Now the program has aproximatly 350 flight students and 28 aircraft.

In addition to the campus program, UVSC works with flight schools in cities accross the country. Students can enroll at UVSC to work on a degree program and do their actual flying wherever they are. The students in that program have been steadily increasing as well. There were more than 12,000 students enrolled in 2007.

However, UVSC's program mostly trains students to work toward becoming commercial pilots.

The decreasing number of pilots is actually part of a larger trend. Chris Dancy, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, said the number of pilots in general has been going down since the 1980s.

That could be due to the costs of an aviation hobby.

Markides said gasoline for general aviation aircraft can be more than $5 a gallon. Planes burn between 11 and 15 gallons an hour. A hanger can cost $200 a month.

"Very quickly it adds up," Markides said.

Add maintenance costs and annual inspection costs and it just gets worse.

Dancy said it can cost up to $9,000 to get a pilot's license.

The costs are projected to rise, especially in the wake of new funding proposals from the FAA. The current funding rules run out in September. There are several plans, but none are final yet. The proposal from the FAA aims to increase gas taxes and create user fees, among other things.

Dancy said those changes could be catastrophic.

"If the FAA proposal were to go through, we believe it would have an absolutely devastating affect on aviation and student pilots," Dancy said.

The FAA says the changes just redistribute the cost of general aviation. Currently, they contribute 16 percent of the costs but only 3 percent of the taxes.

Pat Morley, director of the Utah Division of Aeronautics, said that the future of the industry and the impacts of funding changes are unknown.

"We don't know what it's going to cost. That's the bottom line," Morley said.

Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at blusk@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C1.