"I'm just going to put some oil in so we don't die," says Marcus Hahnemann. Not the words you normally hear before boarding a plane and, to the amusement of the Wolverhampton Wanderers goalkeeper, they prompt nervous laughter from a journalist feeling more than a little apprehensive at being taken up in the air by a Premier League footballer who gained his pilot's licence only six weeks earlier.

Not that Hahnemann is playing the prankster. Things soon get serious once we climb into the cramped cockpit as the American runs through a list of safety checks before steering the 200hp single-engine, four-seat Piper Arrow gently along the tarmac at Wolverhampton airport. "It's windy today so it's going to be a bit bumpy up there," says Hahnemann as he points the light aircraft down the runway before radioing the control tower for permission to take off.

Within a couple of minutes the plane is hurtling along before steadily climbing into the overcast skies ahead. Hahnemann's face is a picture of concentration as his mind goes over everything he has learned since he returned from his home in Seattle in the summer and enrolled on a pilot's course. It has been time-consuming and hard work – Hahnemann completed 50 hours of flying under instruction before he got his licence and spent many more with his head buried in text books – but everything feels worthwhile now a lifelong ambition has been fulfilled.

"I think everybody wants to fly when they're a kid," he says. "I took my pre-placement test for the marines, I was thinking about going into that and flying helicopters. I ended up getting a scholarship to university and I thought when I was done with school I could go in as an officer. I started off in engineering but quickly got bored and was on my way to getting a PE degree, and then they started up the [Seattle] Sounders that year and I signed with them. The rest is history.

"I still wanted to fly but I couldn't find the time or it was too much effort and you lose the bug. But the last two summers, we ended up going to Vancouver Island, where my buddy lives, and it's a 10-hour drive or a two-hour flight in a small plane, so we chartered a small plane.

"You pay $1,000 to get there. I thought that if I had my pilot's licence I could rent the plane for $115 an hour and I could take us. So I came down here to do a trial lesson when I got back in the summer and that was it."

Hahnemann, like most goalkeepers, has always been regarded as a little eccentric. The former Reading keeper has a sizeable gun collection, listens to heavy metal, likes to go deer stalking near his old home in Berkshire, spends hours doing up the many cars he owns and, to the bemusement of his team-mates completes a 10-mile round trip into training on his mountain bike every day. Yet even by Hahnemann's standards, flying a plane seems a little extreme.

Could he not have picked a safer hobby? "I don't think it's dangerous. It's definitely not as dangerous as those guys on the team driving their cars on the road," Hahnemann says. "I come down from flying and call my wife and she says: 'How are you?' I say: 'I'm fine.' She says: 'I was worried about you because you didn't call before.' Then I get in the car and turn on the radio and there's a four-car pile-up on the M42 and I'm thinking: 'I'm fine but what about those people?'"

Footballers are normally prevented from skiing and riding motorbikes because of the risk of serious injury, yet Hahnemann looks amazed when asked if he sought permission from Wolves to fly a plane. "If you ask, they can say 'no'," says Hahnemann, who has taken his Wolves team-mate Kevin Doyle up with him. "They knew about it in the beginning but I'm not going to ask permission. They might say: 'Well, actually, it's not a good idea.' That's not what I want to hear."

As it happens, flying has helped Hahnemann handle the disappointment of being left out of the Wolves side over the past few months. The 38-year-old started the final 25 Premier League matches last season, when he played a crucial role in helping the club avoid relegation, and was first choice this term until he was dropped after the 2-1 defeat at Blackpool in November. Apart from three starts in the FA Cup, he has had to be content with a place on the bench since.

"When things aren't going your way, it's much better to have an escape," says Hahnemann. "The flying is pretty time-consuming and it takes all your brainpower, so all this stuff about relegation ... having my fuel pump on is much more important. All your concentration is on that, and you don't even think about other stuff. It's about being able to immerse yourself in something. I read books as well, and you can escape with a book but you don't get the buzz. The feeling, being 3,000 feet in the air, in a light aircraft, is unbelievable."

Hahnemann has yet to buy a plane, preferring to rent while he continues to pick up more experience with a view to eventually getting his commercial licence. He has everything mapped out and in an ideal world he will carry on playing in England for another couple of years – his contract at Wolves expires in the summer but he hopes to sign a new deal – before returning to Seattle and considering the possibility of turning flying into something more serious.

"It will always be a hobby but maybe I'll try to make it pay – that would be unbelievable," says Hahnemann. "I think the goal for everybody is to do something fun that you don't consider work. I want to be in Seattle when I finish playing because I've been moving all over the world with football, so if I could fly Kenmore Air, that flies floatplanes from Seattle to Vancouver, I'm happy. That would be pretty good fun doing that three days a week."

Hahnemann doubts flying will ever give him the same adrenaline rush he experiences when playing football in front of huge crowds – "I think I'd have to jump out of a plane with a parachute to beat that" – although he admits that being a pilot gets the pulse racing for other reasons. "You are not going to die playing football, normally," says Hahnemann. "You never quite think of it as a life or death sort of thing – even if they say it is. But if you forget to do something here, it really is life or death."

On that note it seems like a good time to return to ground after spending an hour above Wolverhampton and the surrounding area. As we start to descend the wind picks up but Hahnemann is in complete control and the plane touches down perfectly on the runway. "That's a little bit softer than most landings," says the pilot, prompting applause from his passenger, who tells him that he was never worried in the slightest. "I was," says Hahnemann with no hint of a smile.