Taking off from the Jackson County Airport is like running headlong off the edge of a skyscraper.

Located atop a nearly 3,000-foot mountain in Cullowhee, the airport was built to avoid the low-lying fog that often shrouds the Tuckasegee River Valley. It’s unique location provides pilots with an alternative landing strip, and consequently was the Federal Aviation Administration’s top choice of locations.

But looking at a map and deciding what might be a good location for an airport differs from actually flying off a cliff and saying it’s a good spot.

Sitting in the passenger’s seat of a single engine Piper Cherokee 180 wearing giant padded headphones and with a voice-activated mic pressed to my lips, I read off a pre-flight checklist.

“Carburetor heat off?”

“Carburetor heat off,” confirms our pilot Jim Rowell.

“Mixture full rich?”

“Mixture full rich.”

I don’t know what the commands mean. What I do know is that each item checked off brings us one step closer to takeoff. It’s not that I’m afraid of flying. I’ve flown a dozen or more times before.

It’s just that until now, all the planes have had the word Boeing in their name and company logos from U.S. Air or Delta emblazoned on their sides. Somehow, bigger felt safer.

Checked off and fastened in — my lap belt cinched down as though it matters — we aim for the east.

“Alright, let’s go,” says Rowell, Senior Director of Marketing and Promotions at Western Carolina University.

The engine, which has been noisily humming, roars to life and we thunder down the runway. I clutch the checklist in both hands.

“We’re going about 90 miles per hour right now,” Rowell announces with a slight grin.

I give him a slight nod of compliance and consternation in return. While I may be too short to see over the plane’s instrument deck to confirm my fears, the possibility of running out of runway before we’re airborne is becoming very real.

And with that we’re off.

The ground pulls out from underneath us and the campus of Western Carolina University unfolds, the lines on the football field still visible from this height. As we level out, green and blue mountains crest and fall like the waves of an endless ocean. I suck in my breath.

“It’s amazing how you can live in a place for 20 years and yet never really see it,” I say.

A migratory species

For 30 years, pilot Kenneth Gillis has been flying back and forth between the mountains of North Carolina and his permanent residence in Michigan.

A native of the area — his parents settled here in 1937 — Gillis left to go to college and wound up getting a job up north. Whenever he came back to visit he flew, originally using the Macon County Airport as his regional home base.

“As soon as they put this airport in, I started to use it,” Gillis said. “To me it’s a very satisfactory airport.”

Satisfactory, perhaps, but many have questioned whether it is safe. Over the years, the Jackson County Airport has earned a reputation as a hair-raising perch with high winds, little ground-based technology and a fair number of recorded accidents in its early history.

From 1978 to 1988 the FAA recorded nine accidents resulting in three fatalities at the airport. The first occurred in 1993 when a Cessna pilot reportedly flew into the side of a cloud-obscured mountain. The two other fatalities occurred in 1988 when a Cessna was flying through a canyon, lost control and went into a spin, crashing into the trees.

And shortly after the airport’s completion in 1976, a landslide forced the closure of approximately 500 feet of the runway. The slide progressively worsened until a recent repaving project restored the runway to 3,003 feet.

“The slide makes essentially no difference to me,” Gillis said. “But because it’s so conspicuous visually, it’s been made into a big deal.”

Indeed, the slide issue has been at the center of a master plan to improve the airport by building new airplane hangers and reclaiming the loss, a project estimated to cost in the millions of dollars. County leaders, however, have spoken out against spending the money to improve the airport. Instead, they want to form a regional, two-county authority to operate Macon County’s larger airport and entrust their annual operating funds — right now about $16,000 per year — to that entity.

The selling point for the regional airport has been that Macon’s runway can already accommodate small jets and plans are to lengthen it even more. However, pilots say the statement is deceiving. Small jets can and have landed at Jackson, such as when Bob Dole flew in, and that lengthening the runway at Macon’s airport will do nothing to increase the general public’s ability to hop a flight.

“You can land up here in a small jet,” said Jackson-based pilot Alston Macon.

Currently, Jackson’s airport has about 3,000 usable feet of runway, and could recover enough to bring it up to 4,000 feet. Macon’s runway, currently 4,400 feet, could be extended up to 5,000 feet.

If Jackson’s runway were repaired just to its original length of 3,400 feet, it could accomodate 75 percent of the current fleet of aircraft having less than 10 passenger seats, Rowell said.

The key, Macon said, is not the physical length so much as it is a matter of insurance. For insurance companies to be comfortable with a particular plane being based at a particular airport, that plane must have room to start up, break ground, land and stop in one run. It’s called their stop-start distance.

So it’s not that it’s impossible to land at Jackson’s airport, it’s just that a majority of small jets and large twin-engine planes have a start-stop distance of 5,000 feet, making their use of the Jackson airport somewhat questionable.

For smaller, hobby pilots though, Macon said he didn’t see the potential expansion of the Macon airport detracting users from the Jackson airport — mainly because Jackson offers fuel at a lower cost.

While Macon offers jet fuel in addition to regular fuel, which goes for $3.18 a liter, Jackson’s fuel goes for $2.99 per liter.

“They have a staff and we don’t, and that makes a difference,” Macon said.

The Macon airport is set up as more of a commercial enterprise, with a private agent operating a repair shop and selling fuel.

“Flew in to Franklin on 5/21/04. The (fixed base operation) is relatively new and very nice. The people are friendly,” posted pilot Patrick Darby on the airnav.com Web site. “Fuel was somewhat high at $3.37 including 7 percent tax. They also charged us for overnight tie-down even though we purchased fuel.”

Jackson’s airport is run on a volunteer basis and fuel sales are credit card automated.

“By the way, self serve gas is great, but it doesn’t take Discover (good thing I had my AOPA Visa card),” posted pilot Robert Seymour. “$5 daily tie-down, one day waived with fuel purchase.”

Though only a county apart, the two airports seem the polar opposites. According to FAA statistics, Macon — with it’s average of 33 flights per day — brings in 58 percent local general aviation traffic and 33 percent transient. Jackson — averaging 12 flights a day — brings in 52 percent transient and 36 percent local aviation traffic.

Cruising altitude

Soaring above the Jackson County landscape, we look for landmarks — the pods of Fairview School, the treeless, pavement slab that marks the Wal-Mart parking lot, the old Jackson County Courthouse with its domed cupola.

We swing over toward Cherokee for a quick glimpse of Harrah’s casino, then turn back east. Higher up, the tree line breaks, giving way to spotty evergreens and the still leafless deciduous species that spring has yet to warm.

“Can you reach the pedals?” Rowell asks.

We scoot my seat up so that my feet are barely touching two half-a-foot shaped metal pedals. My toes are cautious, fearing a sudden spastic movement that will throw us into a spin.

Rowell explains that the pedals move what are essentially the hips of the plane; the hand held controls in front of us the side-to-side rotation, as well as the up-and-down movement. We’ve got three axes to work with.

If you want to turn the plane left you roll left and pedal left, smoothing the movement into something slow and gradual. The average turn is taken at 20 degrees. I’m doing it more at about 15 ... or maybe 12.

With the turn, Balsam Gap comes into view. Rowell takes the controls back and, traveling at about 5,000 feet, we pass by sleepy, earthen mountains where an unpopulated Blue Ridge Parkway winds its way up to Waterrock Knob.

Over Waynesville we look for more landmarks and I notice that short of Lake Junaluska the most noticeable features of the town are man-made monuments — the old Dayco plant, the new courthouse (and parking deck), the Ingles plaza.

Toward Canton the white clouds of smoke from Blue Ridge Paper puff and dissipate. Then — farmland.

Tilled red clay, green pastures and textured crop rows spread across the land like a giant patchwork quilt. Unlike in the towns, where cars clog asphalt arteries, here there is no movement, only the gentle, undulation of land that can still breathe.

On the horizon we see the Asheville Regional Airport. Rowell tunes in the radio, issues an indentification and waits for a response from the control tower. Within moments we are greeted by an amiable, if not exacting, voice.

“Requesting a touch and go,” Rowell says.

We are authorized and fly around to the south end of the runway. Our descent is swift, and we maintain momentum as we just touch our tires to the ground and pull back up into the skies.

On the return, nudging up against accumulating cottonball clouds, I’m finally able to pull out the camera and take a few shots.

It’s not the subway, but it’ll do

From 1979 to 1987, pilot Alston Macon commuted back-and-forth from Cullowhee to Andrews, where he co-owned a medical lab.

“It made sense to commute by air because that was a business expense and technically you could write that off,” Macon said.

Three to four days of the week — when the weather allowed — he would make the 17-minute flight to Andrews, pick up an old car he left at the airport and drive in to work. Just driving to Andrews would have taken about an hour and 15 minutes.

However, it wasn’t all that simple. Macon would first drive 10 minutes to get to the Jackson airport — a road known for its hairpin turns — unload his plane from the hanger, get up in the air, travel, land, tie down in Andrews, then drive in. All in all, he probably saved 20 minutes.

But the point was just being in a plane.

“You grow up and you see cars, motorcycles and airplanes, and I just happened to like the airplane,” Macon said.

On his fifth plane since learning how to fly, Macon uses the opportunity to bond with his son. Two years ago he bought a used model, and together he and his son stripped it down, repainted it and sold it.

“So now I’m kind of looking for another opportunity to do that,” Macon said.

Looking into the older plane market is much like buying used cars — depreciation helps make things affordable.

“I’m not a wealthy guy,” Macon said.

For example, Rowell’s Piper Cherokee, which he jointly purchased with a friend, Don Wood, would probably go for about $60,000 today. Newer models may range from the price of an average home to the millions.

Paying for the pleasure

Money, however, seems to be at the crux of the airport argument.

Currently legislation exists that would enable Jackson and Macon counties to create a regional authority, but also dissolves the existing counties’ authorities upon regional authority members’ appointment.

Without an operating authority — Jackson’s authority is a self-governing body — control of the airport in Cullowhee reverts back to the county. The federal government, having recently awarded the airport authority grant monies, mandates that the airport remain open for nearly 20 more years. Therefore, if a regional authority were created, the county would have to foot the bill for keeping the Jackson Airport open as well as channel funds into the regional authority.

Meanwhile, airport authority members Rowell, Eldridge Painter and Chairman Tom McClure have filed suit against county commissioners for what they say was wrongful action to remove McClure from his post during fallout from a commissioner launched investigation into the Economic Development Commission, of which McClure is also chair. A temporary injunction replaced McClure and Rowell — who was voted out of his post as secretary/treasurer by what the court has deemed an improperly constituted board — and now the authority is moving ahead with the master plan. The plan — which should generate new revenue for the airport through hanger rentals — was approved prior to any removals or reappointments and thereby may proceed. However, any future votes lie in jeopardy, as the authority may not be able to achieve a quorum. County commissioner and authority member Eddie Madden has said that he no longer plans to attend meetings and is in the process of taking flying lessons at the Macon County airport.

“I would just hate to see the hanger building project die with McClure, and I guess if McClure prevails in the lawsuit to remain on the board what I’m afraid of is now there will be a very antagonistic relationship between the airport and the commissioners,” said pilot Kenneth Gillis.

The hanger project is the construction of 17 new “T-hangers,” which are, as one might expect, T-shaped hangers that allow planes to be parked in alternating fitted slots, wings to rudder. The hangers would be more secure than the existing hangers and would provide more space to rent out.

“I would love to see those hangers built because that would bring more activity to the airport,” Macon said.

With the hanger construction, recovery of the runway slide, a new terminal that would give pilots a place to just hang out while their passengers toured the airport, flying lessons, and a picnic area like there once was, the airport could become a viable development tool, pilots said.

“A group of us came up from Raleigh to spend the day on the Great Smoky Mountain (Railroad). (The Jackson Airport) worked out well. No problem getting a taxi to the train station,” posted pilot John Johnston on the airnav.com Web site.

Bringing it home

Tray tables locked, seats in their upright position.

We come around the south side of the airport and its runway stretches out before us a sort of flattop, buzz cut along the ridgeline.

The strip was created by taking the tops of two mountains and pushing them in, a process that reportedly left boulders in the backyards below and carved a decidedly noticeable feature in the landscape.

Every now and then military training helicopters will take off from the airport, flying low, rattling living room mirrors or just making a quick sweep down the septic tank line.

Zeroing in on the 50-foot wide runway seems difficult. We alight more like a dragonfly than the roaring beast of a 747, all windflaps and engine noise.

On the ground, the day is hot and I feel exposed walking to my car — one of only two with in-state plates in the parking lot. And there’s nothing in my head except a simple little mantra: “again, again ... I want to do it again.”