Mile High Club pilot feels the earth move
A pilot who has a flourishing Mile High Club tourism business in Australia said his enterprise started as a joke.
American Chuck McElwee said he was loading a mattress onto his light aircraft to transport a patient to a country hospital when he jokingly told a curious onlooker that he was starting a mile high club.
A local newspaper in Perth got wind of the venture and sent out an intrepid reporter to discover the truth. The pilot continued the joke, and persuaded a young couple to pose for photographs and say they had been on a flight.
The resulting publicity persuaded McElwee to launch a Mile High Club for real. Last year 314 couples enjoyed the experience at $650 a time, including champagne and chocolates.
“Ninety percent it’s women who pay for it,” said McElwee, adding that in such a small plane he feels every movement behind the curtained passenger section.
“You might say we feel the earth move,” he says.
A 70-year-old woman has returned three times in the company of three different younger men.
by TravelMole Australia
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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