Florida: Pensacola – The Naval Aviation Museum

During our stay in the Florida Panhandle, we decided to visit the Naval Aviation Museum on the Naval Airbase in Pensacola. To our delight entry is free – and this usually means that we should not expect too much. This is not the case -for this museum it is wonderful.

We started by watching a movie on the Blue Angels aerobatic team on the IMAX screen – which really set us up for the rest of the museum. The displays are wonderful – there are a large number of aircraft on exhibit inside and outside and there are cockpits of various aircraft and helicopters you can climb in and try the seats out for size. Jack and Emily had a real blast. Particularly moving was the display exhibit on the prisoners of war in the Vietnam conflict with copies of letters home to the families and poems the prisoners wrote whilst incarcerated. Pensacola is the home of the Blue Angels and there is a fantastic display of their old A-4 aircraft hanging from the ceiling of one of the exhibit halls.