Urban legend, myth or reality, some of you asked us what the Mile High Club was and, for those of you who knew, whether it really existed.

Technically speaking, the Mile High Club gathers together people who have had an “intimate experience” in an airplane in flight. It’s as simple as that.

As for talking about a club, that’s perhaps a bit hasty: we’re more in the realm of self-proclamation, even if a Mile Hight Club is indeed well established online.

In the end, there’s not much to say about the subject, unless you delve into its history and a few related anecdotes.

Mile High Club: a matter of bet

Historically, this is more an urban legend than a reality. At the end of the 18th century, English bookmakers’ books record a bet between two lords on whether they would succeed in having an intimate relationship in a hot-air balloon at altitude. We don’t know whether the bet was won, and in any case the books don’t say whether it was paid.

During the First World War, a German pilot, Oswald Boelcke, may have been the first to claim membership of the Mile Hight Club. But the only thing that’s certain is that he took a nurse into the cockpit of his aircraft for a romantic stroll, and the cramped cockpit and absence of an autopilot at the time suggest that he did indeed limit himself to a stroll. Anyway, he was sanctioned by his superiors.

The autopilot revolution

At a time when there was no such thing as a commercial airplane, the Mile High Club could only be a matter for “professionals”, i.e. pilots. And the invention of the autopilot has certainly made their lives easier.

It was in June 1914, in Paris, that Lawrence Burst Sperry demonstrated the first autopilot flight.

The fact that he no longer had to control the plane for the entire flight certainly gave him the idea of looking for other ways to occupy his time, since he was found in 1916 over the coast of Long Island with a woman named Cynthia Polk, who was obviously having a good time while her husband was on the front lines of the war in Europe. There’s no word on what happened during the flight, but what we do know is that the two people involved made a mistake and disengaged the aircraft’s autopilot (un Curtiss Flying Boat C-2), that it crashed into the bay and that they were found by duck hunters dressed as Adam and Eve.

History will therefore record that Lawrence Sperry was certainly the “founding member” of the Mile High Club.

Mile High Club in commercial aviation

It’s not hard to imagine that, with the development of commercial aviation and then mass tourism, the number of candidates for membership of the mile high club increased.

According to a survey carried out around 2010, 9% of Americans have had sex in flight, including 17% in the lavatory, 5% with a complete stranger and 3% with a crew member.

The development of new seat and cabin types has also created new “opportunities”. Singapore Airlines, which was the first airline to equip some of its aircraft with a real cabin with a double bed in first class, had to remind its customers to “respect the tranquility of other passengers”. It’s no coincidence, either, that Air New Zealand’s SkyCouch economy seat, which can be converted into a sofa bed, has been dubbed the “Cuddle Class”.

Less expected, the installation of baby-changing tables by Virgin Atlantic on its A340s in 2002 obviously gave many people ideas, since the airline recorded frequent damage to the equipment due to “unplanned” use in the months that followed.

What are the risks for Mile High Club applicants?

Some will find it rewarding to be able to call themselves Mile High Club members, and join such prestigious members as Richard Brandson, who confessed to “fulfilling his dream” at the age of 19. But it’s not without risk.

Strangely enough, it’s hard to say today whether it’s legal or not, and it’s tempting to say that the same rules that apply elsewhere apply on a plane. Are toilets a public area? What is the legislation in the airline’s country? In short, nobody knows for sure, but we’d be tempted not to recommend the experience.

Legal or not, the fact remains that the airline is free to decide what is or isn’t acceptable on board, and if it can’t issue fines it can ban a passenger from the flight just as it would with disrespectful, drunk or violent passengers. But if we listen to the airlines or to the rare testimonies of crews, these cases are very rare, if not non-existent… and sometimes it’s better to say nothing than to make passengers who haven’t noticed anything suddenly realize what’s been going on.

But you can also try to find an airline that makes it easier for you.

In 2013 an American airline called Flamingo Air offered a “Romantic” package with champagne, chocolate, a curtain separating the cabin from the cockpit and a discreet pilot for a one-hour flight. An offer that is still valid today.

Based just outside Las Vegas, Love Cloud also offers “Mile High Club Experience” flights around the city.

You’ll find plenty of examples of wacky or embarrassing situations on the net. But in the end, it’s a subject people talk about a lot and about which there’s really not much to say.

Image: bedroom in a private jet by Media_works via Shutterstock