From early aerial experimenters who devoted their lives to the development of a heavier-than-air flying machine to the massive expansion of military flight training during the Second World War, the story of aviation in Alabama represents a remarkable historical legacy. In March 1910, Orville and Wilbur Wright established the nation's first civilian flying school on the grounds of what would become Maxwell Air Force Base, the center for military aerospace education and airpower doctrine. The establishment of the Wright brothers' flying school represents the first of a series of extraordinary events that propelled Alabama to the forefront of the evolution of aviation as the foundation of Pres. Franklin Roosevelt's "arsenal of democracy" during the Second World War.
Alabama Aviation is the story of the formative years of powered flight in Alabama illustrated through photographic images obtained from the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Alabama Air National Guard, Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame, and private collections. Billy J. Singleton is the author of three previous Arcadia Publishing titles—Montgomery Aviation, Mobile Aviation, and Chilton County.