Atlantica - 01.06.2006, Page 31

30 AT L A N T I CA
on the fly
When people ask me what I do, I
tell them that, you know, it’s a
sightseeing trip with the opportunity
to join the mile-high club. Some
people have brought up that it’s
amoral or whatever, but I just say,
hey, you have friends who’ve been to
motels, who own motels. If someone
came up to you to rent a room for a
night, you wouldn’t turn them down.
The only thing I’m doing is renting
them the space to do what they want
for an hour.
I started flying people up in my
Piper Cherokee 6, a single engine
airplane, maybe four or five years
ago. It’s a really stable plane. Just
two people won’t get anything out
of balance. It fits four, technically, but
I take out two of the seats and put
in a mattress. The business started
off kind of slow, but now I do about
one a week. I’m up to probably 75 or
100 now. I take up all kinds of people,
all shapes, sizes, ages from the late
teens into their sixties. Just, you know,
a general everybody. You probably
wouldn’t guess, but about 80 percent
of the people who book the rides are
female.
Everyone’s generally pretty cool
with it. Nobody’s really all that
embarrassed. You have to be open-
minded a little bit and kind of, I guess,
sexually liberated to be able to do
that with someone just a curtain
away. I wear headsets and with the
curtain down I can’t see what’s going
on, but I know when things liven up
in the back.
We leave from West Georgia
Regional Airport, which is about
30 miles west of Atlanta. The views
are generally just countryside and a
couple of towns. Sometimes I have
the option of flying over downtown
Atlanta but you have to go lower
than 5,000 feet because of the air
space. Usually I take them up to 6,500
feet for about 45 minutes. The sunset
flight is probably the most popular.
We take off about 30 minutes before
sunset and land a little bit after dark.
I’ve also done some night flights and
they’re really pretty.
I did have one guy call me up once
asking if he could have a two-hour
flight. And I got to thinking, hey, this
must be some superman-type. I tell
people to just tap me on the shoulder
if they need something. We had been
in the air for half an hour when he
taps me on the shoulder and tells me
that I can go back down any time, that
it didn’t take as long as he thought. It
turned into a one-hour flight instead
of two.
Everyone has to abide by the FAA
[Federal Aviation Administration]
rules. I give them a timer before I take
off and set it for 50 minutes. When the
timer goes off they know they have
ten minutes to get their seatbelts back
on so we can land. I used to just stick a
piece of paper back there telling them
they had ten minutes, but realized a
timer works better.
When we land, I give them a
certificate that says ‘Congratulations,
you joined the Mile High Club.’ a
Mile High Atlanta.
www.milehighatlanta.com

CONFESSIONS OF A MILE-HIGH PILOT
As told to Sara Blask.
IL
LU
S
TR
AT
IO
N
B
Y
L
IL
JA
G
U
N
N
A
R
S
D
Ó
TT
IR
Meet Bob Smith, 50, a corporate pilot
based in Carrollton, Georgia, and the
man behind Mile High Atlanta.
With more than 30 years of flying
experience, you can be assured that
he’ll keep the wings steady.
009 airmail Atlantica 406 .indd 30 23.6.2006 11:31:49