Maybe he needs to go to Waukon to meet with a client. Maybe he and his wife want to go to Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival. Or maybe he would just like to meet his dad in Fort Dodge for a cup of coffee. It’s all the same thing – a chance for Tom Drew to jump into his airplane and fly.

For Pat Rounds, a pilot’s license will represent the opportunity to get in a plane and not jump out. He has 1,500 skydives to his credit, now he’d like to find out what it’s like to actually finish an airplane ride the way most people do.

Then there’s Zac Voss, who likes to take the controls of a small plane because Iowa isn’t a great place for sailing. Uh … how’s that again? One activity might be higher and the other wetter, but they’re alike, he says. It’s all about understanding the weather, acquiring navigation skills and mastering a difficult skill.

That seems to be the link among these three businessmen-pilots. Successful in their careers, they don’t want to simply drive in the sky. They want to master it.

Drew’s urge to get above it all started when he was growing up in Hampton with a mesmerizing role model: a father who practiced law, flew a Cessna 182 and sometimes let the boy take the controls. You can tell he was paying attention to all of that; at 44, Drew is a trial lawyer in Des Moines and flies a Beechcraft F33 Bonanza.

“I sold my car during my senior year” at the University of Iowa, Drew said, “and learned to fly at a private airstrip in Iowa City.” He would fly near Lake Macbride or head across the state to his hometown.

After getting his pilot’s license, Drew taught at least 25 students over a span of several years. “Student pilots are very interesting people,” he said. “They’re from all walks of life, and they’re usually highly motivated.”

His own motivation is the challenge of constant learning. “There’s a reason not everybody does it,” he said. “It’s hard. It requires commitment. I always say it’s similar to someone who’s a leisure runner training to run a marathon.”

Drew has shared ownership of three planes, but now he’s got his own. It’s a six-figure investment, and maintenance is costly. “It’s like a race car with wings,” he said.

His solo aviation highlights have included flying into the now-defunct Meigs Field in Chicago, with an approach over Lake Michigan; landing at the Kansas City Downtown airport and seeing people in the skyscrapers as you glide down below them; and flying low over the Grand Canyon.

Someday, he says, he’ll fly his plane to Alaska.

“When I’m sitting here working hard,” he said, “it helps to know I’ve got my own plane, and I can go anytime, anyplace.”

In South Dakota, there’s been some controversy about the use of state airplanes by the governor, licensed pilot Mike Rounds. But for our purposes, Mike Rounds is just the guy who inspired his little brother Pat to learn how to fly.

Pat Rounds, 42, has his own consulting company and also is the chief executive officer of Petroleum Marketers Management Insurance Co., resulting in a schedule that has kept him from qualifying for his pilot’s license.

“With work, I’ll go a couple of months without flying and then kind of start over again,” Rounds said. “I’ve got way more than the minimum number of hours you need; I’m approaching 100 hours of total flight time, and you have to have about 40.”

He has thought about getting a pilot’s license for several years, but finding time was always the problem. “Now it’s becoming a little more urgent,” he said, for business reasons. He travels throughout Iowa and also into Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota, either to meet with clients of the insurance business or to conduct training sessions as part of his consulting work. “A lot of my trips are in the 500-mile range,” he said, and that’s considered the magic number. On a trip of 500 miles or less, private planes are almost always quicker and more convenient than commercial airliners.

Rounds belongs to a club called Foxtrot, which owns about seven airplanes. Many of his flights combine business with training from a flight instructor who accompanies him. Rounds usually flies a Cessna 150. He has also made many flights in Cessna 182s and 206s, but, as he said, “I always jump out before they land.”

As the president of Voss Distributing, which handles the Red Bull brand in Iowa, Zac Voss was putting in endless hours on highways. “In October 2004, I had driven about 40,000 miles in a year,” said Voss, 29. This is a guy who has sailed with one companion across the Atlantic Ocean and generally knows how to get things done. A year later, he had his pilot’s license.

“I always wanted to learn how to fly,” Voss said. “My grandfather was an engineer for McDonnell Douglas, and I remember him taking me to the airport to watch the planes taking off and landing.”

Renting is the way to go, in his opinion. He pays $70 per hour for the privilege of flying off to see employees and customers across the state.

And it’s not like he’s stuck in the middle of nowhere when he lands. Iowa has 121 airports, and, according to Voss, “the hospitality at small airports is phenomenal. Often, they have a meeting room you can use free of charge, and a lot of them have a courtesy car you can use for free or for a donation.”

Like Drew and Rounds, he’s fascinated by the technical aspects of flight and driven to improve. He listens to podcasts on safety and other flight topics, and “I would rather do 45 minutes of touch-and-go landings than play a round of golf,” he said.

“If I haven’t flown that week, one hour takes care of my thirst for adventure for the weekend,” Voss said. “Then I can focus on cleaning the basement.”