Aviation View | April 2021

149 AVIATION VIEW APRIL 2021 PRYOR F I ELD REGIONAL A I RPORT engines all the way up to cabin class jets. “We can accommodate pretty large aircraft,” Foutz reports. “It’s not unusual for us to have DC9s, 737s…modern airline sized aircraft. Generally those are very large freight loads.” In addition to freight for the defense industry, there are a number of manufacturing operations in the area that use Pryor Field, such as a Polaris ATV plant and a two-million-square-foot 3M facility located in Decatur. A multinational conglomerate, 3M produces everything from ACE bandages to highly sought-after N95 masks. Pryor Field did see a decrease in overall traffic during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic because corporate travel ground to a halt. But there were pre-planned maintenance projects and those were 100 percent federally funded thanks to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security or CARES Act. Maintenance work in 2020 included runway and taxiway rehabilitation. This year the airport plans to embark on a master plan study that will inform Alabama Historical Commission marker on the south side of the airport notes the Southeast Air Forces Training Center was constructed in 1941. Two hangars and a beacon tower at Pryor Field are among the few remaining World War II Army Air Forces Training Centers that have remained in continuous operation. The facility was deactivated on December 28, 1944 and turned over to the Army Corps of Engineers in September 1945. The former training center was later discharged to the War Assets Administration as surplus and became a civil airport. The hangars were then used to convert surplus Army aircraft to commercial airline use for the Southern Airways Company, which later became part of Delta Airlines. Through the years, Pryor Field has maintained a significant amount of freight traffic that continues to this day. Sitting at an elevation of about 590 feet, the airport’s Runway 18/36 is 6,107 feet long and 100 feet wide. The 115 aircraft based at the airport are a mix of single