ALABAMA AVIATION HALL OF FAME
JENNINGS FAULK CARTER
Jennings Faulk carter was born on a farm in Monroe County in 1927 where he grew up. When he was twelve, he built his first flying machine, a paper covered glider, which he flew three times. Too young to fly in World War II, he got a student pilot certificate and soloed at one of Bevo Howard's schools while taking army basic training in South Carolina. He served as an infantryman in General Macarthur’s army of occupation in Japan. Out of the army by 1949, he went to Auburn on the G.I. Bill for two years where he studied forestry and continued his flying by starting the ace flying club. In 1951, Jennings followed the call of his real passion, flying, by selling his interest in the flying club and borrowing the balance of the $465.00 he needed to buy a Model 2 Fleet Bi-Plane.
He moved to Miami with his wife, Ann, whom he had met and married at Auburn, and used the Fleet to help pay his way through Embry Riddle where he trained as an aircraft mechanic by towing banners.
Flying the Fleet put him in contact with a non-flying Ag operator who gave him a start in 1951 as a crop duster treating tomatoes in a cut-down 85 H.P. Cub. This self-taught beginning led to other dusting jobs which he used to supplement his banner towing income until he finished school with his airplane and engine mechanic's ratings.
Flying the Fleet put him in contact with a non-flying Ag operator who gave him a start in 1951 as a crop duster treating tomatoes in a cut-down 85 H.P. Cub. This self-taught beginning led to other dusting jobs which he used to supplement his banner towing income until he finished school with his airplane and engine mechanic's ratings.
Over the years, Jennings used a variety of planes in his Ag flying business including an R-1340 powered 4-E "Bull" Stearman which is now exhibited in the Canadian national aviation museum in Ottawa as one of Canada’s first air mail planes, a 1930 Kinner powered Bird CK which is now a privately restored antique, and AT-6 Texan converted to a biplane which did not work out too well. Jennings preferred Stearmans for the small fields of Monroe County and amassed 16,000 hours in them over a 40 year dusting career.For a few years, Jennings extended his season by spraying cotton in Guatemala from October through December, a practice resented by the local pilots who stopped it by selective sabotage of the aircraft and in at least one case by fatally shooting one of the gringo pilots while engaged in a spray run. Jennings flew in the national air races in Miami in an 85 HP. Knight Twister in 1966 and also began to pursue serious acrobatic flying at this time.He won many trophies flying a 220 HP. Stock Stearman from 1966 to 1969.He moved up to a Bucker Jungmeister in 1968 and won his class (primary) at the National Acrobatic Contest at Fort Worth, Texas in 1970. The other two class winners were Tom Poberezny and Gene Soucy.
Jennings and Ann moved back to Alabama in 1952 where he introduced crop dusting to Monroe County in a 220 H.P. Continental powered Stearman which carried 100 gallons of chemical.
Jennings has owned some sixty airplanes and has saved some rare ones from extinction. A Stinson SR-8E which he bought from Chief Anderson in 1953 and stored for many years was restored by a new owner and won best antique at Sun & Fun in 1991. In 1962, he went to Canada and bought a derelict Fairey swordfish, the type aircraft which sank the Bismarck, and kept it stored in his hangar for many years. This plane, now grandly restored, is at the fleet air arm museum in Yeovilton, England and is one of three in the world flying today.
Jennings retired from dusting in 1992 and has a total of 18,000 hours flying time. He and Ann, who still works as a registered nurse, live on their comfortable farm near Monroeville. He now flies a fine Bucker Jungmeister which he owns with his son Patrick, also an acrobatic pilot and professional caliber guitarist as well as Lear Jet and King Air Corporate Captain in Monroeville. Another son, Steve, a Paris trained artist, practices dentistry in Monroeville and currently flies an ultra-light. His third son, Frank, a onetime walk-on football player at auburn, also a pilot and mechanic, is a maintenance executive with American airlines in Tulsa. Jennings carter has touched and helped many people in aviation. He is a credit to this state. It is most fitting that he should be enshrined as a distinguished member of the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame
Besides successful careers as an agricultural flyer, businessman, race pilot, airshow and competition acrobat, airplane collector and restorer, farmer, husband and parent, this pilot adventurer is also a published author. In 1989, Henry Holt published "a bridge of childhood" which he wrote with Marianne M. Moates. This well written and entertaining story of Jennings' early years with his first cousin, Truman Capote and his friend and playmate Harper "Nell" Lee, gives strong insight into Truman’s turn of mind at a very young age. It was published in Germany in 1991.
