Aviation in Alabama

Aviation in Alabama
Aviation in the United States
Alabama State Flag
Airports
Commercial Service - Primary Airports	4
Commercial Service - Non-Primary Airports	1
General Aviation Airports	65
Other Public-Use Airports	24
Military Airports-Other	9
First Flight
10 March, 1910

Alabama's first aeronautical event was on 10 March 1910 with the flight of a Wright biplane flown by Orville Wright in Montgomery, Alabama.^[1]

Events

1909: E.T. Odum brings a aircraft to the Alabama State Fair.^[2]
15 March 1910: Orville and Wilbur Wright establish the first powered flight school in Montgomery, Alabama.
10 July 1991: L'Express Airlines Flight 508 crashed at Birmingham Municipal Airport

Boeing manufactures the Delta IV rocket in Decatur, Alabama.
Continental Motors, Inc., Mobile, Alabama 1929- Major producer of aircraft engines for general aviation aircraft.

73,000 jobs are based in Alabama in support of aerospace. ^[3]

National Space Science and Technology Center a joint research venture between NASA and the seven research universities of the state of Alabama.

Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport provides air service with 1.4 million operations annually.

All flight operations in Alabama are conducted within FAA oversight.
Maxwell Air Force Base is the headquarters of Air University (United States Air Force).
The Redstone Arsenal supports missile and space operations.
The Marshall Space Flight Center supports NASA operations.
The U. S. Army Air Corps' Tuskegee Airmen were trained at Tuskegee, Alabama
The Alabama State Trooper Aviation Unit was formed in 1975 using four TH-13 Sioux and one Cessna 182. The unit currently operates one Bell 206L, one Bell 407, seven OH-58 helicopters and three Cessna 182’s, a Piper Navajo and King Air 200.^[4]
Cullman City Police Department operates two OH-58, Dale County Sheriff's Office operates 3 OH-58's, Etowah County Sheriff's Office operates one OH-58 and one Cessna 172, Jefferson County Sheriff's Office operates two OH-58's, Limestone County Alabama Sheriff's Office operates one OH-58, Morgan County Sheriff's Office operates one OH-58, Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Aviation Unit operates two OH-58's, Tuscaloosa Alabama Police Department operates two OH-58's^[5]