It was just a few weeks ago that the residents of Jonesboro learned that a site along Route 1 in their town has been chosen the best location for a new regional airport. It is to be Washington County’s all-weather (well, almost) airport serving eastern Maine. Its location fills a gap in the state as one plots the locations of the existing airports that currently serve businesses and travelers.

As my fellow residents and taxpayers contemplate this new development, we ask, “Is this good for Jonesboro?” and Machias, Jonesport, Whitneyville, etc. Good question.

You will sense from the following stories from my experiences with general aviation that I am all for the airport. It’s impossible to predict just what kind of economic benefits will derive from the airport being here, but read about what my experiences have been, and judge for yourself if this is of at least potential value to Washington County. The engineering firm that has been tasked with studying the question calls up results from several other airports in the Northeast citing dollar benefits they brought to their communities. None of them seemed to compare with our situation here.

The closest I came some years ago to doing in Washington County what the new airport will do was to fly from Bangor International Airport to the Deblois Flight Strip to pick up the CEO of Wyman Blueberries (it was Bud Kneeland at that time). I flew him on at least one occasion to northern Quebec for contract negotiations. They produce far more blueberries there than we do in Maine. No thought was given to hauling blueberries. A small aircraft is the way to go.

Another real-world example: We (again in Bangor) received an urgent call from the paper mill at Woodland. Their paper machine was down, a broken part, a shaft. The closest replacement part was available at a mill (or supplier) near Buffalo, N.Y. They were losing big bucks every hour that machine was down until we could get the part to them. So they sent a technician (by truck) to Bangor, we had a plane and pilot ready (me), and off we went on a two-hour trip to a small airport just south of Buffalo.

The weather was good, but we arrived just before sunset, and the runway was populated with a dozen or so deer. One low pass to clear the way in our twin Cessna Skymaster, and we were on the ground. The heavy shaft fit easily in the plane, and we were on our way back to Bangor.

Why didn’t we just fly into the Princeton Airport with our cargo? They don’t have an FAA-approved instrument approach. The Jonesboro Airport is to have an ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach available. By the time we got back to Bangor the weather was bad. Fog, below minimums. Without compromising safety I commenced an approach and made a smooth landing. The shaft was on its way to Woodland. Mission accomplished.

As an aside, that night the fog was so bad that the scheduled airlines by regulation were not allowed to even commence an instrument approach, they could not even try it, but because I was operating under FAR Part 135 which applies to charter operations, I was not under that limitation.

There will be occasions when University of Maine at Machias faculty and staff will want to fly to a meeting rather than drive to Bangor to catch a flight. A charter flight might get them back to the office (or home) the same day. I had occasion to fly a University of Maine System trustee (and his wife) to Augusta for a meeting, wait for them to finish, and get them back home in just a few hours.

When I was a graduate student at the University of Maryland I changed the Astronomy Department’s whole operation by flying them an hour’s flight to Green Bank, W.Va., for work at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Their alternative was at least four hours driving to that remote mountain valley to do their observing.

All kinds of other activities may be expected to enliven the airport’s operation. There should be a flight instructor available to train new, young pilots. I flew fire patrols for the Forest Service out of Bangor, but it was Washington and Hancock counties that were our coverage area. An unlikely service that might find its way to our new regional airport would be overseas flights, small aircraft of U.S. manufacture going overseas or European planes being sold here in this country. There is a surprising volume of that kind of traffic that passes through Bangor. Jonesboro will have the closest U.S. all-weather airport to Europe.

Jonesboro will never compete head to head with Bangor. They can handle large aircraft that will not be able to land on Jonesboro’s 5,000-foot runway. Jonesboro is not a “jetport.” Also, Jonesboro is not expected to have Customs available. I can think of other limitations, but if you are worried about the noise from large aircraft, there will not be large aircraft nor will the aircraft that are there stay in the air over our community for long.

Someone said, “What’s wrong with the airport in Trenton? It’s only an hour away.” Try to get to Trenton from the Machias area in an hour. Good luck. I spoke recently with a Cherryfield pilot who keeps his six-seater plane at Trenton. He would love to be able to move it to the new Jonesboro location some day.

Someone else said, “We don’t need an airport with all the lights and noise of the Trenton airport.” Trenton’s lights are probably on far more than what we could expect at Jonesboro; they have scheduled airline service. That’s not planned for Jonesboro.

There are expected to be announcements of a public informational meeting at the Jonesboro Elementary School on Tuesday, Aug. 8. Come and have your questions answered or at least addressed.

Norman A. Ross, of Jonesboro, holds an FAA commercial pilot’s certificate. He served as a U.S. Navy pilot and retired as a Navy commander.