PORTLAND, Maine — When his father bought a plane a few years ago, Enock Glidden caught the flying bug.

"I could ride in it, but I wasn't able to fly it," he said of his father's small sport plane. "But I loved flying so much, I decided it's what I wanted to do for a living."

Yet unlike most people interested in aviation, Glidden couldn't run out and sign up for flying lessons. Born with a disease of the vertebrae called spina bifida, Glidden has been in a wheelchair his whole life.

It's a condition that in most of the country and world would have kept him out of the cockpit.

But today, Glidden has logged almost 40 hours of flying time and is on his way to getting a private pilot's license, thanks to a program run out of Southern Maine Aviation at the Sanford Regional Airport.

It's the first flight school in Maine to offer instruction to wheelchair-bound students, and Glidden is only the second student to take advantage of the program.

"I always thought it was a worthwhile endeavor," said Rich Whicker, chief pilot and flight instructor for Southern Maine Aviation. "Here's a chance for somebody trapped in a chair — we take that for granted as ambulatory people — to be able to break free of the chair once in a while."

Glidden and Ed Clark of Windham, N.H., take lessons in a Cessna 172 M-model outfitted with hand controls designed to manipulate the pedals that allow pilots to steer and brake the plane.

"It works like a tiller in a boat," said Whicker, while demonstrating the movements of the metal lever. "We're not talking rocket science here — it's readily available, and costs about $750 to install."

Despite the simple mechanics, it's still rare. Only about five flight schools in the country make flight instruction available to wheelchair-bound students, said Mike Smith, president of International Wheelchair Aviators, an organization of almost 300 disabled pilots and their supporters based in California.

Glidden himself moved from Patten to Farmingdale in January just to be closer to the Sanford airfield.

Smith, who has been in a wheelchair since a helicopter accident in 1981. "But there's a lot of discrimination. I hold an airline transport rating and over 18,000 hours of flying, but I've even had people from the (Federal Aviation Administration) tell me I shouldn't be allowed to fly."

Glidden said he knows some people who "freak out" when they see a handicapped pilot approaching, but so far, he's encountered more support than disdain. Those backers, he said, include his parents and teacher; the federally supported Maine Vocational Rehabilitation program, which is funding his flying lessons; and Daniel Webster College in Nashua, N.H., which will welcome him as its first wheelchair-bound flight student.

Glidden expects to start flying at Daniel Webster in January, once the school gets a plane certified for hand controls. He plans to get his commercial pilot's license during the four-year program.

"It took a couple of years of planning, but I'm flying," he said. "I'm hoping it'll start a trend and more people will try to do it."

Whicker says he sees potential for expanding the program.

"I hope to be able to offer it to some of the guys that are coming back from overseas too, who have lost the use of their legs," he said.

Glidden may find there are some limits to a career as a handicapped pilot, says Smith. "You're not going to catch someone in a wheelchair in a 727," he said. "I don't think the U.S. is going to be ready for that kind of thing, even though it's not that difficult. But flying cargo and in small commercial aircraft — it's completely acceptable, and you can make a very good living."

Though Smith has never met Glidden, he says the 28 year-old will have to be a fighter. "Once you get into it, there are people who will try to push you aside," he said. "But there's a lot of people who fly planes with a leg missing or an arm missing. You just have to want to be there to get there.