I Stayed at the Pilot Paradise You Can Only Visit Twice

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]These are the Blue Ridge Mountains, and this is Mountain Air, a fly-in country club with its own private runway sitting at an elevation of 4,436 ft on top of a mountain, making it the highest runway east of the Mississippi.

[00:00:13]This place is every pilot's dream. It's got planes, mountains, golf, restaurants, [music] and because it's a private community, I always assumed you could only experience it if you own a home or know someone who does. But, after a little research, it turns out Mountain Air has a hospitality program, which means you can actually book a stay, fly in, and experience the club for yourself. But, it's limited to just two times in your lifetime. So, in this video, we're leaving home on an epic adventure into the Blue Ridge Mountains for a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience pilot paradise on Earth. Why?

[00:00:45]Well, for fun, but also because lately we've been obsessed with the idea of building our own fly-in destination, and if you want to see how it's done at the highest level, look no further than Mountain Air. But, to actually fly in, I'll have to get an access code required to land, fly the mountain arrival procedure, land on the 2,900-ft runway, then safely take off, climb out, and head home.

[00:01:06]Good morning, Peachtree Ground, Cessna 22318 on the north ramp with Oscar VFR northeast. November 22318, Peachtree Ground, runway three left, taxi via Delta Alpha, cross runway 34 at Alpha, advise run-up complete. Three left via Delta Alpha, cross 34 at Alpha, advise run-up complete, 22318. Okay, so booking our place for the night was super easy, but getting permission to land was a bit more involved. Because of the challenging terrain, high elevation, and short runway, pilots are required to review the recommended arrival procedure, then hop on a phone call with the resident pilot.

[00:01:37]>> [music] >> After a positive conversation, the pilot sent me a four-flight route for the arrival and gave me a PPR code, officially granting me permission to land at Mountain Air.

[00:01:50]>> Ground 22318, run-up complete. November 22318, give way to a King Air, that'll be moving from your left and then hold short runway three left monitor tower. All right, give way to the Kingair, hold short three left monitor tower, 22318. [music] So, the plan for today's flight is to take off from Atlanta, fly toward Asheville, North Carolina, pick up the arrival procedure at 5,500 ft and land in Paradise. 22318, wind 060 at three, gust 16, runway three right clear for takeoff, right turn to the northeast is approved. Right turn approved, clear for takeoff three right, 22318.

[00:02:46]It's getting pretty. It's getting so pretty. We got mountains in sight. Which is good cuz we're going to Mountaineer.

[00:02:51]That's a good sign, it means we didn't get lost.

[00:02:54]Approach 22318, we go ahead and cancel with you, we appreciate the help. 22318, roger radar service terminated, squawk VFR, frequency change approved.

[00:03:01]All right, thanks for the help, see you.

[00:03:03]Okay, we've cleared Asheville's Class C airspace and canceled flight following, so now we're on our own. We'll join the mountain arrival procedure at a GPS waypoint called Royal, then follow the points inbound to a wide right traffic pattern for runway 32.

[00:03:17]>> [music] >> Are you nervous?

[00:03:20]No, just got to like Come correct.

[00:03:23]>> Come correct and be paying attention.

[00:03:24]Yeah, this plane because the runway is long enough. Like for us, this runway is 2,900 ft and it slopes quite a bit uphill on runway 32. So, that's going to help you slow down a lot and 2,900 ft is just generally a quite a good bit for this plane. So, if anything, because of the rough air and the terrain, I'd rather be a little high and not fast, but just plenty of airspeed, not super slow. I'd rather have buffer in case we were to get a shift in wind, we've got plenty of airspeed.

[00:03:49]>> You don't want to get behind the curve.

[00:03:51]Right. Like when I say things that I don't I've heard you say that I don't know what they actually mean.

[00:03:57]All right, we're turning in, folks.

[00:03:59]I got the power lines to follow, which is supposed to be a 068 heading. Next, we're going to be looking for the town of Burnsville, and we'll make our right turn to enter the right downwind for 32 just before we reach the town.

[00:04:10]All right, I got the town of Burnsville in sight. We're coming up on our right turn to join the right downwind. Let's grab the weather.

[00:04:17]Mount Airy Airport, runway 32, automated advisory. Wind variable at 3 knots.

[00:04:23]Density altitude 8 temperature 14° C, dew point 8° C.

[00:04:28]Altimeter 3028.

[00:04:30]Density altitude 4,900.

[00:04:33]Airport for private use only. Welcome to the highest runway east of the Mississippi.

[00:04:38]Oh, yeah.

[00:04:42]I think that's it, right on that ridge.

[00:04:43]Oh my gosh.

[00:04:46]>> [music] >> Mount Airy traffic, Cessna 22318 about 3 and 1/2 to the northwest setting up on the royal procedure inbound, Mount Airy.

[00:05:00]Roger, Cessna 318, air traffic. Okay, Roger. Thanks. Our PPR is 2408 for 22318. Roger, thank [music] you.

[00:05:09]Wow.

[00:05:12]Oh my [music] gosh.

[00:05:16]Mount Airy, Cessna 22318 joining right downwind 32 full stop, Mount Airy.

[00:05:23]Mount Airy traffic, 318 [music] turning right base 32 full stop, Mount Airy.

[00:05:34]Mount Airy traffic, 318 turning final 32 full stop, Mount Airy.

[00:05:41]>> [sighs and gasps] >> That is nuts. That is literally nuts.

[00:05:45]That's like an aircraft carrier that's floating up here. Okay, we're definitely a little high, but I like that. I'm fine with it.

[00:05:51]We're on a kind of long final.

[00:05:54]We got plenty of altitude. Let's go ahead and do flaps 30.

[00:05:57]Normal landing.

[00:06:02]It's normal. It's normal. It's normal landing. It's normal landing.

[00:06:06]Normal landing. Speed's good. Got a little extra speed, but I like that.

[00:06:10]We're at 70.

[00:06:12]Normal 65.

[00:06:14]Got plenty of runway, and it's an uphill.

[00:06:19]Looking really good. Right at 30 degrees flaps. Oh, little little updraft coming right now.

[00:06:26]Pull the power back to get back to our speed and nose up a little.

[00:06:30]Okay, power's out.

[00:06:40]Greased it on. Are you kidding me? Oh my gosh.

[00:06:45]>> [laughter] >> Well, that was awesome.

[00:06:47]>> For a good Cessna, you can pull onto the ramp and park beside the uh Cirrus at the end. Okay, we'll park by the SR22 8.

[00:06:58]>> [music] >> Welcome to Mountain Air. I feel like the landing went pretty well, but I'll tell you I'm already thinking about the takeoff. Because with just 100 horsepower in my Cessna 150 at high elevation, it's definitely going to be a little >> Oh my god. But before all of that, there is so much to explore here. So, let's get unloaded and go check it out. We fly this thing all over the place, and to keep the channel running, we need the internet. So, we're constantly on public Wi-Fi at coffee shops, hotels, and tons of other random places. So, to keep our personal information and data secure, we like to use a VPN, [music] which is why I'm happy to say thanks to Surfshark for sponsoring this video. Whether I'm on public Wi-Fi or even at home, I feel safer knowing Surfshark is encrypting my connection to keep [music] my personal information private. It also lets you virtually place yourself anywhere in the world, which is great for when things like streaming services or search results are affected by your location.

[00:07:45]So, I can access content online just like I'm back at home, or get around price discrimination based on where I happen to be when I'm booking a hotel or buying something on the internet. And one thing I really like is one Surfshark account works across all of our devices.

[00:07:56]So, my iPad, our laptops, and our phones are all covered. If you want to keep your connection private and secure wherever you're online, scan this QR code or click the link in the video description below to visit surfshark.com/flywithme, or use code flywithme at checkout to get four extra months of Surfshark VPN.

[00:08:13]>> [music] [music] >> So, we land, immediately get the car, and now he's bringing us down the runway to go watch this guy take off in his Bonanza.

[00:08:25]What an amazing place.

[00:08:27]Are you we kidding?

[00:08:29]It's it's pristine.

[00:08:40]Being here on the ground at Mountain Air watching a V-tail Bonanza just blast off and disappear into the mountains to go get fuel and cruise around before coming home. This is why we've been so fascinated with the idea of building our own fly-in destination one day. There's something almost unbelievable about pulling up to a place like this in your plane and parking right in the parking lot. I mean, can you imagine the vision and conviction you'd need to see a rugged mountaintop at 4,500 ft, visualize your fly-in oasis, and then go actually clear a thousand acres and make it happen? A few months ago, Laney and I explored an abandoned airport in the Smoky Mountains that's up for sale, and we have not stopped thinking about it.

[00:09:12]Imagine if we could get enough people excited, raise the money, attract the expertise, and actually build something like this. Our own fly-in pilot paradise. I honestly can't think of anything cooler than that. But, enough of my TED Talk for now. Let's go drop our stuff in the condo, grab a quick bite, and check out this golf course.

[00:09:30]>> [music] >> It's like a little 5-minute drive from the runway. I feel >> 5 minutes is not 5 minutes. It's like about What do you think is more or less?

[00:09:40]>> Less. I think it was like 2 minutes. All right, like a 3 to 5-minute drive from the uh runway. I think we came by the back nine on the way over here.

[00:09:50]It looks amazing. Now I'm even more excited to take off. This is it.

[00:09:55]You ready? Yeah. All right.

[00:09:58]Welcome to Scenic Solitude, a two-bed, two-bath condo we booked through the hospitality program that includes club amenity access with the rental. Our single night's stay was $310 for the night plus a pet cleaning fee of $100 since we brought Tunie, a cleaning fee of $125, $40 in taxes for a total of $574.52 for our stay. It's worth mentioning this place can accommodate four people, so the math would definitely be a little friendlier with another couple.

[00:10:27]Park the car in the wrong spot.

[00:10:30]So, we booked this through the hospitality program at Mountain Air, which allows you to stay here as just anyone, open to the public, but you're limited to two. So, you can only do this twice in your lifetime and then no more. Otherwise, you have to become a resident. But, when we landed, they had this car, this Honda Pilot SUV, at the ramp right off the runway. So, you park the plane and they left this for us to use while we're here. And then we get here and they've got the key to a golf cart and there's the golf cart.

[00:10:58]>> [music] [music] [music] >> How's it going?

[00:11:13]Oh, yeah. I'm All right, can we Can we talk about how exquisite this place is? Like, are you kidding? Look at that. Literally, I don't I just It's Look at this.

[00:11:34]>> [music] [music] >> All right, well this is the arrival end of runway 32. So, this is where we came in. We kind of did our base and final turns in this valley back here and came in. That up slope because this runway is essentially perched on top of a mountain. You get a lot of kind of unpredictable turbulent wind when you're coming in. So, I like to come with a little bit of extra speed. In the 150, you can afford to do that cuz it lands so short anyway. But, just that way if the wind shifts and you lose a bunch of air speed, you're still well above your stall speed. It just makes me feel more comfortable. Plus, you have the up slope of this runway. So, I mean look how much that thing slopes up. It's nice to know that it's going to help you slow down when you're coming in. And then tomorrow when we're doing the takeoff, we're going to go out this way. So, it's going to come down the hill. That'll help us speed up instead of slow down. And then we're going to launch out into this valley. And you're starting at 4,500 ft.

[00:12:30]So, that helps you feel a little bit safer knowing that, you know, because we're so high up and it's a 100 horsepower plane, we don't have a ton of extra energy at all. So, the climb is not going to be great, but we're starting at 4,500 ft. So, as long as we can blast out of here, get the wheels in the air, we can make this turn to the left and continue the climb out away from terrain. But, the slope of the runway is definitely going to help. It's 2,900 ft. I mean that's plenty for the 150, but with density altitude, you really need to run your numbers because as high up as we are, if it was really hot like in the middle of summer, if it was 85° here, the density altitude could be a couple thousand feet higher than reality. And if you don't run your numbers, it's going to take you way longer to accelerate. It can be really dangerous.

[00:13:10]>> [music] [music] >> All right, let's get runway 1 4 weather.

[00:13:31]Mountain Air Airport runway 1 4 automated advisory wind calm temperature 1 4 Celsius dew point minus Celsius altimeter 3 0 1 3 density altitude 5,200 Excellent. Okay, says wind calm. I don't think it's quite calm, but it's not not blowing super hard. We're definitely going to take off down this hill on 1 4.

[00:13:53]Run up is complete, so we'll make our call to taxi out. We're going to go line up.

[00:13:57]Well, lean it a little bit. We'll give it full power. We'll release the brakes.

[00:14:00]We'll do no flaps cuz that that hurts the climb. And we've got no obstruction immediately other than that mountain right there. It's not immediate. But we're going to turn left before it. So, yeah.

[00:14:08]Mountain Air traffic Cessna 2 2 3 1 8 back taxiing runway 1 4 Mountain Air.

[00:14:13]Roger, we have no other reported air traffic.

[00:14:15]Thank you.

[00:14:17]Okay, run up is complete. We're good to go. You ready? Yeah. Okay.

[00:14:20]>> little bit leaned out here. Come right up to the edge of this cliff. You got all the cameras going, right? Uh yeah.

[00:14:25]Okay.

[00:14:25]Come right up to the edge of this cliff.

[00:14:28]Use every bit we can.

[00:14:30]I didn't do the tail. You did the tail, right?

[00:14:32]>> Yeah. Okay.

[00:14:33]All right, y'all ready?

[00:14:36]Say Mountain Air traffic Cessna 2 2 3 1 8 departing runway 1 4 Mountain Air.

[00:14:45]Okay.

[00:14:46]And we're off.

[00:14:48]We're not off yet.

[00:14:49]Green green green.

[00:14:52]Charging.

[00:14:54]Airspeed 5.

[00:14:56]Definitely slower to accelerate. That's expected. This downhill is going to help us pick up even more speed. Here comes the slope.

[00:15:07]Yep.

[00:15:09]A little bit of back pressure. There we go.

[00:15:12]Keep that nose down. Get some real speed. No obstacles yet. Oh my god.

[00:15:17]>> [music] >> Woo.