In a departure from joining an honor society, working on the yearbook or taking up sports, students at local high schools are trying out their wings — literally.

Riverwood International Charter School senior Michael Wolters, 18, said he joined the Riverwood Flying Club because it was an exotic kind of extracurricular activity.

“My parents wanted me to join a club. This is one where I thought I’d have fun, and I do,” he said.

Riverwood Raider Rex Nailling, 16, said while he was benched due to an ACL injury, he turned his attention skywards.

“When I was really little, I had the dream to fly a fighter plane,” he said.

So did faculty advisor Alan Sohmer, 41, a math teacher and certified flight instructor who started the club in 2008.

“The military told me to get a math degree,” he said. “I’m still able to fly and the kids are paying for the plane.”

Each student who takes a one-hour expedition called a discovery flight pays $95 for the rental of a Cessna 172 aircraft, like Giovanni Solis, 18, who took the controls after taking off from Briscoe Field in Lawrenceville.

“It was a new experience, a new world for me, like being free,” he said. “It was shocking and great at the same time.”

The Centennial Aviation Club is comprised of five schools — North Springs Charter and Centennial high schools, Fulton Science Academy and Haynes Bridge and Holcomb Bridge middle schools — and meets at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in Chamblee.

Centennial graduate Rohan Bhatia, club president and founder, said the 12 to 15 North Springs students in the 40-member club have found delight in flight.

“They love it,” said the certified commercial pilot. “It’s very interactive and very hands-on.”

Bhatia said students in the North Springs science magnet program have sharpened useful skills through flying.

“It reinforces all their physics and math knowledge and makes it more concrete,” he said. “They have to calculate fuel burn, ground speed and air speed.”

Arts magnet students at North Springs bring creativity to the table while puzzling out solutions.

“It’s like in math — there’s five different ways to get the same result,” Bhatia said.

Bhatia, a student himself at the Daytona, Fla.-based Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Marietta campus, said the youths get additional training that helps throughout their adult lives.

“There is the time-management aspect,” he said, “and decision-making.”