This particular Cessna, he knew, offered fuel-injected reliability and a rugged, easy-to-fly airframe. It was an airborne SUV, the Ford Bronco of the skies, and he could close his eyes, project an image of the cockpit, and reach out to virtually touch every control, switch, and gauge.

The Cessna had landed, rolled out, and taxied to its home in the airport’s hangar farm. Other planes slept under the stars, tied down out on the tarmac, but Colton wanted one stored out of sight. After sundown—after the daily FedEx flight and the last of the commuter runs had taken off for Seattle and Bellingham, and the airport’s provincial terminal went dark for the night—he simply walked through the open fence.

A typical small-plane hangar features a large door for the aircraft along with one or more regular-size entrances called man doors. Plane theft is practically unheard of and few private hangars have alarm systems despite housing planes worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. It took just a few seconds to jimmy open the man door. Inside, Colton switched on his headlamp and illuminated his dream.

FLIERS LOVE THEIR AIRPLANES. Passionately. During preflight inspection, a pilot caresses the frame. He runs his hands along the ship’s smooth skin, probing her flaps, stroking every inch of her propeller blades, even gently lifting her tail. It seems to go well beyond a simple safety check.

An intimate relationship with an airplane offers its pilot superhuman ability, harnessing simple physics to magical effect. Pull back on the yoke and zoom to ten thousand feet, laughing in the oppressive face of gravity that back on earth remains ready to ruin you just for tripping on the stairs or leaning too far back on a bar stool. For aficionados, planes elicit fanatical devotion.

As Colton scanned the inside of the hangar, he saw the Cessna owner’s face watching his every move. The plane belonged to Bob Rivers, a popular radio personality who lived down in Seattle and lived for flying his plane up to the San Juan Islands on the weekends. Promotion posters featuring Rivers’s smiling, silver-maned mug decorated the hangar walls.