For aircraft builders/restorers, there is membership in Chapter 152 of the Experimental Aircraft Association with Tuesday evening meetings in the 7,000 sq.ft. restoration building out back. One project nearing completion is the restoration of a Fokker D VII wrecked in the movie Blue Max. The D VII was the premier German fighter of World War I.

Pilots and aviation buffs created the Museum from scratch and every aircraft, engine, display case and artifact is a precious treasure to one of these pioneers. Their collective efforts produced the first hanger in 1983 and their continued support helped fill a second hanger. Through the leadership of Executive Director and Chairman of the Board, Dr. Dudley J. Pewitt, the third unfinished hanger now sports a T-33 jet trainer, F-86 Sabre jet, Huey helicopter, BT-13 Vultee (WWII trainer), Aeronca Sedan on floats and a half-dozen home builts. There is a A-7 Cosair and F-84 parked in the rear.

The Southern Museum of Flight has airplanes galore but a lot more. Fifty engines and 200 models are on display and there are aviation photos and paintings throughout. A recent Alabama Arts Council grant financed the restructuring of thirty display cases. Four wall exhibits in the past year include Tuskegee Airmen, a USAF Art Collection, and two Women in Aviation exhibits, "Women Fly" and "Women in Flight".

"Women Fly" features prints in the "Women Fly" T-shirt series of aircraft-related recruiting posters of the WASPS and WAVES (airplanes mechanic) in WWII, and the aviatrixes Pancho Barnes, Willa Brown, Jackie Cochran, Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, Libby Gardner, Nancy Love, Gladys Roy, Louise Thaden, and Bobbi Trout. "Women in Flight", through the photography of Smithsonian photographer Carolyn Russo, captures 14 contemporary women who make their living from flying. Russo is the well-known creator of the Smithsonian traveling exhibit "Women in Flight" consisting of 75 photographs on 45 panels which is booked solid through 2001. Bullfinch Press reproduces the photos in a book by the same title. Copies of Women in Flight and other books and aviation-focused gifts are in the SMF Museum store.

The Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame on the second floor memorializes forty-eight heroes of their who made air travel a way of life… the inventors, teachers, corporate giants and warriors. Reading their sketches reveals a common passion for their work and love of flying.

And more is to come. The Air Force recently loaned a B-26 Douglas Invader to anchor a Bay of Pigs exhibit—Cuban T-33 suspended over a shot-down B-26 (with CIA painted Cuban markings) which, when completed, will be the major Bay of Pigs exhibit from an air-operations perspective. A WWII primary trainer, such as the PT-17 Stearman (promised by an Alabama industrialist) will complete a WWII training exhibit (currently housing a AT-6 Texan and BT-13 Vultee). All three can also be used with an expanded Tuskegee Airman exhibit (now centered on the AT-6). And plans call for a MiG-15 to match our F-86 for a Korean War exhibit and a MiG-21 with the F-4 for a Vietnam Exhibit.