For most air traffic controllers, the commute ends at the airport gate. For Jake Hutzler, it ends on the airport ramp—after a 20-minute flight through the Colorado sky with a propeller strapped to his back.

Hutzler, 28, spends his workdays directing planes from an airport tower in Pueblo, a city near the Front Range mountains. Once a week, he makes the journey by powered paragliding, also known as paramotoring.

Before each flight, he lays out a large wing on the road outside his apartment complex, fires up the motor and starts running. Within seconds, his feet leave the ground. For the next 20 minutes, he cruises at a leisurely 35 mph (56 kph) over the expansive fields around Pueblo, soaring over a highway and a water tower before the airport comes into view—all while listening to his favorite music.

The trip requires coordination. Before taking off, Hutzler calls the tower where he works and lets his colleagues know he is coming. Once airborne, he keeps them updated on his position and altitude.

"I'm very small and I don't show up on radar," Hutzler said, "so they'll want to kind of keep track of my location and get updates on my progress."

As the airport nears, he waits for the OK to land on the airport's ramp. Pulling down on toggles to slow the paramotor, he lets his feet dangle and meets the ground with a brief jog. He packs up the wing, strips off his jacket to reveal his collared work shirt, and begins his shift telling planes when it is safe to land and take off.

For someone who has been fascinated with flying since childhood, it is a particularly satisfying commute. Hutzler says it is as close as a person can get to flying like a bird.

"In a paramotor, you have a view that almost nobody gets to experience," he said. "You have no cockpit, nothing in front of you. You're just sitting there in the air and total freedom to go wherever you want."

His grandfather used to take him up in a small four-seat aircraft. In college, Hutzler logged about 20 hours toward a pilot's license but the costs were too high for him to continue. Everything changed when he came across a viral video of a man flying a paramotor to McDonald's and eating his hamburger on the flight home.

"After I saw that, I was like, 'I'm sold,'" he said. "I gotta do that."

Hutzler began training to fly the contraption in 2021 in Florida and later became an instructor. Part of the appeal is just how accessible paramotors are: there is no license required, and the price tag is a fraction of the cost of many other forms of flying. They remain subject, however, to federal rules on ultralight vehicles, including that they can be operated only during the day and that fliers must avoid congested cities and towns. In the United States, those rules fall under the Federal Aviation Administration's ultralight regulations, which keep paramotors outside the certification and licensing system that applies to conventional aircraft—the regulatory opening that makes a commute like Hutzler's possible.

The sport became woven into Hutzler's life story. He trained the woman he would go on to marry, and when he was ready to propose, he used fake engine trouble on his paramotor to lure her to the contraption, where he had left a ring. Their paramotors stood with them at the altar on their wedding day. Now he is looking forward to the day their 2½-year-old daughter is old enough to go on a tandem ride.

But after Hutzler started working in air traffic control earlier this year, the job left him less time to fly. His solution: start flying to work.

He approached his manager about commuting by paramotor, and the two went through the rule book and made sure he would have two-way communication with the tower whenever he entered their airspace—a practical necessity for a craft too small to appear on radar. He made his first flight to work in June and has been doing it ever since, weather permitting.

Weather, however, is a strict gatekeeper. Paramotoring is a very fair-weather sport: it takes only about 10 mph (16 kph) of wind—essentially a light breeze—to keep Hutzler on the ground. It can also be problematic when the sun heats the ground and causes updrafts, making for an extremely bumpy ride.

With the time needed to set up the paramotor and put away all the gear, the trip takes slightly longer than driving to work. But, he said, it is so much more fun.

"You could be having your favorite song playing in your headphones, and you just can relax and take in this awesome experience," he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.