Museum Review - Naval Aviation Museum

The Fatherly One and I went to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, as it was the last of the big air museums neither of us had been to. I had high hopes, as all of the official museums I had been to were quite good, and it more than lived up to them.

An SBD, survivor of Midway¹

Website

Now, the first and most important thing I look for in a really good air museum is a lot of planes that are rare or have an interesting history, and Pensacola delivered in spades. Everything from the first plane ever to fly across the Atlantic in 1919 (an NC-4 flying boat) to the first plane to land at the South Pole (an R4D) to the only survivor of the Battle of Midway (an SBD that they fished out of Lake Michigan after it crashed during training). Plus a lot of very rare planes from both the early days of naval aviation or the dawn of the jet age. I would have put it very high on my list just from the airplanes alone, even if they had been presented like the planes at Pima.

But they weren't. Signage was uniformly good throughout, and a lot of the planes were carefully staged to show off various aspects. It was also one of the more accessible air museums I've ever been to, with an opportunity to get up close and personal with the planes that most museums would keep you well away from. And they also had a lot of other displays on various aspects of naval aviation on the upper level, everything from aerospace medicine to airships to catapults and landing techniques to the Skylab 2 Command Module. But the single best part of the museum was the recreation of a bit of a WWII carrier, including a ready room, several offices, and a bit of berthing, which was absolutely spot-on. I have been on museum ships which were less convincing, and they even got the smell right. There's also a nice section of recreation hangar deck, a replica of a 1942 jungle airbase, and a section of home front shops from WWII, all lovingly detailed. Seriously, that section was amazing. There are also some other nice diorama sections, from a WWI airbase to the island of USS Cabot (CVL-28) to a cutaway PBY to Jesse L. Brown's crashed Corsair. There's also the officer's club from NAS Cubi Point, moved after the base closed in 1992 and now a restaurant. I'll let Neptunus Lex explain its significance, but even if you decide to eat somewhere else, you should at least take a walk through to marvel at all of the cruise plaques.

The Cubi Point Cafe

Now, some logistical issues. First, note that the museum is on-base and you have to enter through the west gate, not the main gate. Google may steer you wrong here. Second, this is very much a full-day museum. We toured with review contributor theredlamb and his family, so we weren't moving all that fast, and we were there from 10 until the museum closed at 4. This also allowed me to actually review it for the benefits of parents, as the youngest member of our party, who was 5, had a great time asking questions and climbing into every one of the detached cockpits that were open for visitors, of which there were probably a dozen or so. Note that everything from Vietnam or later is in the detached Hangar One, and the door to that can be found over by the Dauntless in the WWII exhibit. It closes half an hour before the rest of the museum, so be sure to leave enough time for it. A minor quibble is that the routing is rather messy, with the late 50s jet fighters opposite from the WWI stuff, so it's hard to plot a route that doesn't end up going through places twice. Also, there's a big ceremonial area that gets used for a lot of pilot retirements, which was loud and busy through most of the day, and meant lots of people in uniform all around.

Hangar One

My major quibble is that the outside section, which has a lot of the bigger Cold War airplanes, is closed to the public, and their website isn't (or wasn't at time of writing) entirely clear on this. Apparently, up until about 6 months ago they would run tours on a golf cart, but base security shut them down. I had a long talk with one of the volunteers when we went back to try and see them, but as it is, a lot of really cool planes, including their P-3, AJ Savage, A3D Skywarrior and A-5 Vigilante were off-limits. They are apparently in the process of spinning up some new stuff, which is unfortunately not announced to the public yet. I hope they can get things solved so these planes get back on display, and that the new stuff is cool. It's also worth noting that when the Blue Angels are in Pensacola (which they weren't when we visited), their practices are open to the public on Tuesday and Wednesday, although I believe these get rather crowded.

The only remaining SB2U Vindicator

So on the whole, it was a great museum. I think Dayton retains the title of "best air museum" by dint of the sheer scale of the place, but the margin is narrow, and Pensacola is probably second to NASM-Mall for integration of stuff that isn't planes alongside the planes to stretch the visit out, something I am a big fan of. Greater Pensacola also has other cool stuff in the area that is worth doing. You should definitely come and visit if you like naval aviation at all.