Southern Museum of Flight, Aviation museum at Birmingham International Airport, United States
The Southern Museum of Flight is a civilian aviation museum on the grounds of Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport. It holds nearly 100 aircraft plus engines, models, photographs and paintings, among them a Wright Flyer, a Curtiss Pusher, a Fokker D-VII, an Alexander Eaglerock, an F-4 Phantom, an F-86 Sabre, an AH-1 Cobra, Soviet-built MiGs, a Mi-24 Hind, an A-12 Blackbird and the recovered Lake Murray B-25C Mitchell.
The museum was established to preserve civilian aviation history and displays aircraft spanning different decades. A significant piece is a B-25C Mitchell bomber that crashed during training in 1943 and was recovered decades later.
The Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame, housed in the museum, presents the state's aviation history through collective biography, profiling the pilots, engineers and builders it honours. A diorama exhibit is dedicated to Alabama's Tuskegee Airmen, the Black pilots trained in the state during the Second World War.
The museum occupies grounds at Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport. In 2023 it stated it would keep its original campus while continuing plans for a new site as an expansion, so check which location is open before travelling. Allow time for the aircraft hall and the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame.
The museum's B-25C Mitchell bomber, named "Lake Murray," crashed in South Carolina in 1943 and sank to 150 feet. It was raised in September 2005 by a team led by Dr. Bob Seigler, and the recovery was filmed for the History Channel's Mega Movers series.
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