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Albert Whitted Airport is a city-owned public-use airport in St. Petersburg, a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States.〔 The airport is located on the western edge of Tampa Bay, southeast of downtown St. Petersburg and The Pier. It is also located east of the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. It covers and has two runways. == History == St. Petersburg is recognized as the birthplace of scheduled commercial airline flight. On January 1, 1914, a Benoist XIV flying boat from the company St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line piloted by Tony Jannus, took off from the central yacht basin of the downtown waterfront, on the first scheduled commercial aircraft flight in history. His passenger was A. C. Phiel, a former mayor of St. Petersburg. Albert Whitted Airport was later began construction in October of 1928 and opened in the summer of 1929. The airport is named for Lieutenant James Albert Whitted, USNR, a St. Petersburg native. Albert was one of the U.S. Navy's first 250 Naval Aviators, commissioned at age 24 just as the United States entered World War I in 1917. He served as chief instructor of advanced flying at NAS Pensacola, Florida and was later assigned to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.〔 Leaving active duty, he returned home in 1919 and introduced the people of St. Petersburg to flying. Albert would take people up in the "Bluebird", a plane he designed and built. He never charged for the flights. Albert's aerial maneuvers always left spectators in awe. Albert also designed and built the "Falcon". The Falcon and Bluebird were used in a commercial flying business he had with his brother, Clarence.〔 On August 19, 1923, James Albert Whitted and four passengers were killed during a flight near Pensacola aboard the Falcon when the propeller broke off. The city's airport, known until then as Cook-Springstead tracks, was subsequently named Albert Whitted Airport in 12 October 1928. National Airlines, one of the nation's first airlines, began service there in 1934.〔 Decades later, National merged with Pan American World Airways (PanAm) to create one of the world's largest air carriers. In 1929, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, at the request of St. Petersburg, agreed to base one of its famous airships (i.e., blimps) at Albert Whitted Airport. Albert Whitted Airport was one of the first airports to base their blimps.〔 During 1934-1935, the Public Works Administration (PWA) constructed what would become Coast Guard Air Station (CGAS) St. Petersburg in the southeast corner of Albert Whitted Airport. During the first years of World War II, aircraft at CGAS St. Petersburg were part of a valiant but inadequate deterrent to the German submarine campaign in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. As the submarine threat in the Gulf slowly abated, the air station concentrated on search and rescue activities. After the war, commercial marine and aircraft traffic continued to increase and pleasure boating operation increased exponentially. Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina and Martin PBM Mariner aircraft came aboard during the last years of the war and stayed to be the backbone of the postwar search and rescue missions. By the mid-1950s, helicopters also became part of the CGAS St. Petersburg inventory. CGAS St. Petersburg also flew the large P5M Marlin, the last seaplane the U.S. Coast Guard procured in tandem with the U.S. Navy. The P5Ms were replaced beginning in 1951 〔"The Coast Guard" (page 294) C-2004 by Foundation for Coast Guard History ISBN 0-88363-116-4〕 by the amphibious HU-16 Albatross. By 1976, the HU-16s had been replaced with four HH-3F helicopters. The Coast Guard's desire to add four large, land-based HC-130 Hercules aircraft at St. Petersburg in 1976 made continued Coast Guard operations at Albert Whitted Airport an impossibility because of its short runways, prompting a move to the larger St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport and construction and establishment of a new air station, Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, replacing CGAS St. Petersburg.〔 With the establishment of CGAS Clearwater, CGAS St. Petersburg was subsequently converted to a non-flying Coast Guard installation as home to several cutters and the current Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg headquarters. In addition to Coast Guard flight operations, during World War II, Albert Whitted Airport was converted to military use as a primary flight training base for student Naval Aviators for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. Hundreds of Naval Aviation cadets under the U.S. Navy's V-5 pre-commissioning program received initial flight training in Stearman N2S and Waco biplanes. At the end of the war, Navy training ceased, civilian commercial and general aviation activity returned, and the Coast Guard remained the sole military aviation activity at the airport until its relocation in 1976. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Albert Whitted Airport」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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