Greenwood–Leflore Airport

Greenwood–Leflore Airport is a public airport seven miles east of Greenwood, the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi. It is owned by the City of Greenwood and Leflore County, but is actually in Carroll County.The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a general aviation facility. There are no scheduled airline flights.HistoryWorld War IIGreenwood Airport was built by the United States Army Air Forces as a basic flight training airfield. Greenwood Army Airfield was the home of the 7th Basic Flying Training Group (BFT), and assigned to the Eastern Flying Training Command.As built the base had four 5000x runways and a 50acre concrete parking apron. The pavement required was the equivalent of 65mi of two-lane highway. In addition, there were rail lines which were used to deliver gasoline and oil as well as coal and freight. On occasion, a troop train would venture onto the base to deliver or pick up cadets. There were 375 buildings, including; three fire stations, a 170-bed hospital, theater, chapel, recreation halls, post exchanges, mess halls, warehouses, barracks, a photo lab, parachute building, hangars, a sub depot, link trainer buildings, ground schools, a large swimming pool and myriad of other buildings necessary to run a ‘small city.’Because of a housing shortage, the Army later added several hundred apartment units known as Greenaire Homes. They were home for many enlisted men and their dependents as well as civilian workers. The airfield had many auxiliary landing fields to support pilot training: Paynes Auxiliary Field Oxberry Auxiliary Field Avalon Auxiliary Field Curger Auxiliary Field Tchula Auxiliary Field Greenwood Municipal Airport Greenwood AAF was also home to a contingent of Women's Army Service Pilots (WASPs). These women were rated to fly everything from B-24s to fighters. During the peak of basic training activities, the airfield averaged about 36,000 operations per month and the aircraft consumed millions of gallons of aviation gasoline annually.