Wichita ? Seventy-five years after he watched Charles Lindbergh take off on his solo flight across the Atlantic, a New York man is still flying his own plane.

John Miller, 96, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., has logged more than 39,000 hours in the air, including a solo flight to Wichita in his 1969 Beechcraft Bonanza for this weekend’s 34th annual American Bonanza Society convention and trade show.

As a mechanical engineering student, Miller cut classes to go to Roosevelt Field on Long Island and see an airplane known as “The Spirit of St. Louis.”

He slept in a hotel lobby that night and the next day May 20, 1927 he was among about 500 people who saw “Lucky Lindy” take off on his historic flight.

“I stood directly behind the airplane and watched,” Miller recalled. “There were wires to get over, and he had to fly between two poles.”

He knew the plane was heavy, with 450 gallons of fuel aboard, as Lindbergh roared down the runway.

“I shook my head and said, ‘We may never see the poor guy again,”‘ Miller said.

Miller’s flying career began before he met Lindbergh. One summer he helped a barnstorming pilot maintain a World War I surplus Jenny biplane.

At the end of the season, the pilot gave him the rickety old plane and told him that if he could rebuild it, he would come and teach him to fly.

“I didn’t wait for him,” Miller said. Instead, he taught himself.

“I have been in the business ever since,” said Miller, who soloed in the Jenny on Dec. 15, 1923, his 18th birthday.

Miller flew to Wichita alone in his plane from Poughkeepsie, where he has lived in the same house the last 82 years.

“Passengers are a nuisance,” he said. “‘How long is it going to take?’ ‘I’ve got to go to the bathroom.’ ‘The air’s too rough.’ ‘I’m feeling sick,”‘ he said in a mocking voice.

Miller has seen and experienced the golden age of aviation firsthand.

And he did see Lindbergh again, and even helped him roll his planes in and out of hangars at other airfields. But Miller kept his distance and never asked Lindbergh for an autograph since everyone else was hounding the famous aviator.

“One day he asked my name, and I told him John Miller. The next day, he brought out an autographed picture signed ‘To Mr. Miller’ he had forgotten the first name. I still have that photograph,” Miller said.

The high point of the Bonanza Convention for Miller is the publication of his first book, “Flying Stories” by the American Bonanza Society. “I wrote the stories for their magazine, and they surprised me by making them into a book. I’m overwhelmed by it,” Miller said.

About 500 Beechcraft owners are taking part in the convention, which wraps up today.