US Cessna 150 pilots stay at 'Pilot Paradise' in North Carolina which you can only visit twice in your entire life

These two Cessna 150 pilots found an incredible Pilot Paradise in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, but it comes with a few caveats.

The first one is its hospitality program.

It has a strict twice-in-a-lifetime policy, which is unusual but understandable when you learn why.

But the other caveat is even more ironic, and there’s probably a reason for that.

Mountain Air is like a golf club, but for pilots

YouTuber Fly Me to the Fun found an incredible private fly-in country club in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.

It’s called Mountain Air, and it’s perched on top of a mountain in North Carolina at an elevation of 4,436 feet, which means it has the highest runway east of the Mississippi River.

It has an interesting hospitality program, with a strange but understandable caveat: you can only fly there twice as a guest as part of a ‘try before you buy’ scheme.

The reason why you’re only allowed to visit twice in your life is to maintain exclusivity while also giving potential residents a chance to explore the gated community.

After that, you’re either in, as in you buy property and become a resident, or you’re out.

Landing at Mountain Air is a highly regulated process due to the runway’s length and high elevation, which leads us to the other caveat we need to mention.

Most private jets are way too big for this ‘Pilot Paradise’

Drew Reggie and Lanie Bakeburg, the aviation couple behind the Fly Me to the Fun YT channel, have a Cessna 150, which can easily land on the 2,900-foot runway, though its tiny 100-horsepower engine faces serious performance struggles trying to climb out of the high altitude.

But the runway’s length makes Mountain Air inaccessible to most if not all private jets that are usually mentioned in these conversations.

Pretty much all Bombardier, Embraer, and Gulfstream jets are way too big for this.

Mind you, the fee confirms that this Blue Ridge Mountains country club is not necessarily aimed at that particular type of client.

The whole package, including the nightly rental and fees for the Cessna 150, only cost Drew and Lanie $574.52.

The short runway was a technical necessity, nothing more, but the fee tells you everything you need to know about this country club.

At nearly $575 for a single night, the stay is certainly a splurge, but it is a price tag that virtually all pilots can afford to experience ‘twice in a lifetime’.

If the club had set entry fees at $57,500 instead of $575, it would be a completely different, ultra-exclusive playground.