5 Reasons It’s Totally Worth Joining The Mile High Club

From my experience, more than heavy petting beneath a blanket is virtually impossible on a regular commercial flight. Once squished into an airplane’s tiny bathroom, the stench of other people’s excrement and the difficulty of positioning make it all too likely that your plans flop, quite literally.

So when I learned about Flamingo Air’s unique “flights of fancy”—special sightseeing tours featuring cocktails, chocolates, and a “very discrete pilot” ($425 per couple)—I got pretty excited. Finally, I could sidestep the usual hurdles to joining the ranks of the sexually daring. Luckily, when I suggested to my current boyfriend that there was no more appropriate way to celebrate three years together than to get busy on a plane, he said he was game.

Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Flamingo Air has been escorting pairs into the sky for more than two decades. Throughout an hour spent hovering between the clouds, customers are urged to “give someone special a flight they won’t forget” (read: have sex). Sharon McGee and Dave MacDonald, the husband and wife team behind Flamingo, claim that demand never dies down for these brief romantic escapes, especially around Valentine’s Day, and, interestingly, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

As a non orgy goer, the reality of having sex a mere three to five feet from a pilot on board a small aircraft was a little more intimidating than intimate. But the temporary weirdness was totally worth it. Below are the top 5 reasons you should join the Mile High Club too.

1. The idea of flight is arousing in itself

“It might have to be the Mile High Minute Club,” my boyfriend said, pointing to the bulge in his pants as we boarded Amelia, the turquoise and pink Piper Cherokee 6 aircraft that would serve as our coital air chariot. You see, the very idea of flight is sexually exciting. Just ask Angelina Jolie, who once famously characterized flying as “so much better” than sex, or read up on Freud, who associated aerial dreams with pleasure.

2. You get to count yourself part of a brave minority

According to a 2011 census conducted by Trojan, 33 percent of American men yearn to have sex on an airplane. But a mere 4 percent of U.S. adult respondents to a survey led by Durex reported achieving in-flight intercourse. Those who manage to carry out their erotic, high altitude fantasies therefore constitute an elite minority. Your first class envy is destined to evaporate the second you join this somewhat secret society.

3. The view is badass

Especially combined with the gentle sensation of levitating, the spectacle of the sun setting on the landscape below is truly breathtaking — dare I say, sexy? Even if you go the commercial route, it doesn’t take much imagination to envision the sky as a backdrop to your sexual escapade.

4. The bragging rights are unparalleled

The first thing you learn after joining the Mile High Club is that the only thing awesomer than joining the Mile High Club is bragging about the experience to whomever will listen. You’re sure to earn automatic respect from others, unless of course you’re this randy British woman, who was arrested for causing a commotion after officers broke up her gratuitously noisy bathroom romp on a flight headed, too perfectly, to Sin City.

5. It’s our duty to toast important historical figures

One hundred years ago, in 1914, the inventor Lawrence Burst Sperry unveiled the autopilot, a device that automated flying and thus freed the hands for other objectives. Sperry, whose in-flight antics with a lady friend inspired the tabloid headline “Aerial Petting Ends In Wetting,” seemed to comprehend the romantic applications of his invention, and is considered the Mile High Club’s founding father. Every important historical figure deserves a nod in honor of his greatest achievement!