Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.3

elcome to the

Mount Pleasant Regional

Airport, a 3,700-foot-long,

75-foot-wide runway,

six hangars, a few other

buildings and three flight

schools, all located on a

300-acre site just west of the Carolina Park soccer fields

and bounded on one side by a road named for a local avia-

tion legend. The airport’s brain is the Charleston Aviation

Authority; its heart is the East Cooper Pilots Association,

a tightknit group of men and women who enjoy a meaty

conversation, get a kick out of helping others and, most of

all, love to fly.

The Association has been around since 1996, 10 years

after the airport was established in what was then a rural

area north of Mount Pleasant. Its first president, Mike Mc-

Curdy, a former police officer in Mount Pleasant and on

the Isle of Palms, took the helm of the organization in 2004

and again in 2016. He said between 25 and 35 people usu-

ally attend ECPA meetings, though membership seems to

be a difficult concept to define.

I park my car no more than 100 yards from what passes for an airport terminal,

reveling in the realization that I won’t have to pull out a credit card when I leave the

premises. I won’t be hassled by an overzealous TSA agent, nor will I have to decide

which bags to check and which to carry on – there’s no room for either on this trip.

And when I walk through the front door, there’s no sign of seemingly thousands of

harried travelers rushing to their connecting flights, gulping down a final bite of fast

food or desperately seeking the comfort of one last earthbound bathroom break.

Instead, I encounter a small group of men, sipping coffee, trading tales of the wild

blue yonder, philosophizing about a hobby that has all but consumed their lives and

simply enjoying one another’s company.

Photo by Brandon Clark.

The Mount Pleasant Regional Airport is located on a

300-acre site in North Mount Pleasant.

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