Raleigh County Memorial Airport

RALE IGH COUNTY MEMOR I AL A I RPORT Raleigh County Memorial Airport sits at an elevation of 2,504 feet; only an hour’s plane ride from Washington, D.C. and within a 10-hour drive of 65 percent of the U.S. population. While much of the surrounding terrain is mountainous, there are four wide open approaches into the Airport. “It’s located right in the middle of the north and south corridor of the East Coast,” says Cochran, “and all that traffic flies over us. We are in a situation where we’re kind of sitting out here by ourselves, so to speak.” The history of the Airport can be traced back to the post-World War Il era. Acquisition of a 3,000-acre plot of land began in 1948 and the Airport was formally dedicated on July 4, 1952. At that time, it had one east-west runway that was about 5,000 feet long and 100 feet wide. For the first two decades or so, Piedmont Airlines provided commercial service using DC-3s. “And they were hopping all over the East Coast here, from Pittsburgh down to the Charlotte area,” Cochran recalls. By the late 1970s, the Airport expanded with the addition of a second runway. This north-south runway is 6,750 feet in length and 150 feet wide. It was resurfaced in 2001, doubling its weight-