By Simon White
A spare hour and $650 and Chuck McElwee will give you the chance to lose your "Mile High virginity" in the back of a plane like this.
Chuck McElwee says he's in the business of "selling dreams".
Not just any dream mind you. For $650 Mr McElwee will sell you an hour-long chance to join the Mile High Club... in the back of a twin-engine Piper Seneca.
Mr McElwee, the owner of the Jandakot-based Air Australia International - "no, not THAT Air Australia," he says ruefully - is an ex-US navy flier who trains pilots for commercial and private licences and offers no fewer than five different charter flights.
But when a journalist rings up, provided he hasn't had any more little accidents, he can pretty much guarantee there is one thing they want to talk about: amorous activities in the back of a propeller-powered plane.
"It all started about 15 years ago. We were getting an aircraft ready to do [medical] patient transfers and somebody saw us and asked what we were doing," Mr McElwee recalls.
"There's no such thing as a secret at an airport, so I just gave them this throwaway line that we were fitting it out so people could join the Mile High Club.
"Next thing I know I've got the paper calling up and asking if they can do a story about it. 'Sure' I said, even though the thing didn't actually exist and we ended having to mock up this set-up using a couple of pretty attractive people who I had learning to fly.
"The story ran and all of a sudden I've got 25 real calls from people wanting to do it."
Since then, Air Australia has done 315 Mile High flights. Mr McElwee also likes to point out that the company has undertaken 1100 patient transfers during that time but, not surprisingly; it's the Mile High Club that generates more gossip.
A gentleman is said to never kiss and tell but Mr McElwee is happy enough to fly and share a little inside information (albeit without mentioning names).
His oldest Mile High-er? The wealthy 75-year-old woman who came back three times, each with a different toy boy.
The most famous? Probably the player from the Dockers or Eagles (he won't say which), who had a Mile High package bought for him and a "lady" supplied by some mates, then was too bashful to go through with it.
The strangest? Maybe the naked and sweaty woman who gleefully pulled back the privacy screen to show the pilots that her beau had just proposed to her or perhaps the big fellow (Mr McElwee remembers him as looking like a "shaved ape") who popped his head into the cockpit and said he needed a second bottle of champagne.
His busiest day? Definitely the Valentine's Day where he had six charters back-to-back (as Air Australia only has six sets of sheets for the back of the plane, this was maximum capacity).
The clientele? According to Mr McElwee, 90 per cent of trips are booked and paid for by women, mainly in their 30s.
"Then you have the smart guys who say they'll need two hours. I tell them that if they are like most men I know, one hour will be plenty enough," Mr McElwee said.
"Other guys might pop their head in [the cockpit] and ask where we are going. I usually just tell them that if they are looking out the window they are doing something wrong back there."
Mr McElwee's Mile High package incorporates champagne, chocolates, a screen separating passengers from the pilots, a six-foot double bed with fresh linen, a certificate and commemorative pin at trip's end and the opportunity to fly day or night.
He believes he is the only charter operator in Australia who offers the Mile High experience on a regular basis and that only one US business has been doing it for longer.
Mr McElwee says with headphones on and aircraft noise it's difficult for pilots to tell what passengers are up to, although the extra movement of the small plane is usually a giveaway.
Mr McElwee is aware some people believe the Mile High service is immoral but doesn't see the difference between what he offers and, say, a hotel renting a room to frisky couple.
Most of all, he says people need to lighten up and adopt the same sense of humour that helped him get through 20 years of flying off aircraft carriers around the world.
After meeting his now-wife when a carrier docked in Fremantle, he moved to Perth in 1984 and has built a fleet of 16 planes.
"I always said that the navy wouldn't give me my own squadron, so I went and bought my own," he chuckles.
"Most of my [navy] medals, I couldn't tell you what they gave them to me for. What I remember most from the navy are the things I almost got court-martialled for."
Follow Simon White on Twitter @simmowhite
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