Aviation

Aviation
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The history of aviation began with the Wright Brothers in December, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The history of flight in Florida began with Lincoln Beachey, the first man to fly from Florida soil. In 1911, Beachey made the first night-flight in the history of the world over Tampa. As aviation progressed, companies pioneered the scheduled transport of passengers by air. On January 1, 1914, the Benoist Company scheduled passenger service from Tampa to St. Petersburg with a five dollar fare. The Benoist "Air Boat" made its first flight over Tampa Bay (25 miles at 60 mph) on January 12. The Aviation division of the State Road Department was created on April 15, 1933. In April 1935, the division presented the first Florida Ten-Year Plan of Aviation Development. At the time there were approximately 134 usable airports in Florida with expenditures of $1.2 million in federal, state, county, and city dollars. In 1993, there were over 700 airports including private airfields, helistops/pads and sea bases with expenditures topping $260 million.

	World's First Airliner - Benoist Type XIV (1914) (41 k)		Pan American S-40 Airplane (1931) (46 k)
	Clippers Over Miami (1934) (21 k)		Taylor Field (1943) (42 k)
	Orlando Municipal Airport (1932) (23 k)