European aircraft maker Airbus says the inaugural test flight of its first airplane made in the United States was a success.
The A321 passenger jet took off this morning from the company's new plant in Mobile.
The three-hour flight over the Gulf of Mexico included a series of maneuvers and tests of all the airplane's operating systems.
The aircraft will be delivered to purchaser JetBlue in a few weeks after final preparations. Airbus began constructing the $600 million plant in 2013 after selecting Alabama as the location.
State and local governments provided more than $158 million in incentives for the factory, which will employ about 1,000 people.
The plant will also produce A319 and A320 aircraft aside from the A321.
Spring hasn’t brought warm temperatures to Alabama. Temperatures this morning dropped below freezing in many northern areas of the state. Similar temperatures are forecasted for tomorrow morning.
Kurt Webber is a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Huntsville. He says it’s not unusual to have a freeze at this time of year.
“The average last freeze for really most of our areas is either the very end of March, the last few days of March, or the first week of April. Sometimes going into the second week of April in some of our Tennessee counties.”
Webber says morning freezes can cause small damage to fragile plants. The record last freeze for Birmingham came on April 23rd in 1986.
When the skies darken over the next few weeks, listeners may see some high-tech weather equipment on the roads.
Meteorologists are converging on north Alabama for a massive study of severe storms and tornadoes. VORTEX Southeast is an effort to better understand how the climate and environment in this area affects how tornadoes form and how strong they get. Scientists also want to improve their ability to forecast these storms.
Dr. Kevin Knupp leads the team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville facility where VORTEX is headquartered. He says the environment in the Southeast poses some problems for weather researchers.
“We can’t chase storms in the Southeast because of blockage by trees. Radars need to have good view of the horizon, and there are only a few, relatively few areas where we have good radar sites, where you have good visibility in all directions.”
That means rather than chasing storms, these researchers will set up equipment and let the storms come to them. The group will publish their findings later this year and hopes to conduct a second study next spring.