BOCA RATON -- Some critics have dismissed the TV game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? as a trivia game for dummies, but no one can say that about a version for local pilots called ``Who Wants To Be An Aireman?''

The ``Million-aire'' takeoff was created by the Federal Aviation Administration's Fort Lauderdale office for teaching safety to pilots and plane mechanics.

In the FAA's version, contestants are asked questions about the weather, federal flight safety regulations and runway light signals. The FAA tried the game Saturday morning on about 200 pilots and mechanics at the Muvico Palace 20, near the Boca Raton Airport.

Contestants vied for top prizes such as vacation trips donated by South Florida businesses, but the questions were so difficult that most participants were knocked out early, walking away with T-shirts and $15 gift certificates to restaurants.

The FAA spent more than four months preparing the two-hour safety game show, even going so far in its quest for authenticity as to seek (and receive) permission to use the TV show's format and sound effects from Buena Vista Studios in Hollywood, said Cary Mendelsohn, safety program manager at the FAA's Flight Standards District Office in Fort Lauderdale.

The FAA's local district office includes Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, Glades and Hendry counties, and some 19,000 pilots and mechanics.

``It's not always easy to give people the incentive to get back into the books, when they have their rating in their pocket,'' Mendelsohn said.

Mendelsohn played the role of Regis Philbin Saturday, making sure to ask participants, ``Is that your final answer?'' When a player was stumped -- which was often -- he had one chance to seek help from a friend, from the audience and to eliminate two of the wrong answers.

The top award Saturday morning was a $200 pilot's headset, won by Marc Zeldes, a 36-year-old helicopter pilot from Fort Lauderdale.