National Museum of Naval Aviation
The National Museum of Naval Aviation is an aviation museum with a focus on naval aviation on Naval Air Station Pensacola , Florida .
history
The museum opened on June 8, 1963 with an exhibition area of only around 800 m² and eight aircraft. As early as 1965, a committee convened by the then Chief of Naval Operations David L. McDonald decided to enlarge the museum. To this end, the Naval Aviation Museum Association was founded at the end of 1966 to collect donations. Arthur W. Radford took the chair . In 1975 a 6,000 m² building was opened, which was fully financed by the Association . As part of this, it was renamed the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation .
Under Thomas H. Moorer , the association was able to enlarge the area to over 10,000 m² by 1980. In the next ten years, this area could be more than doubled. In 1994 the area was expanded to over 26,000 m², and an IMAX cinema was set up with a capacity of 534 visitors.
collection
Today the collection includes 150 aircraft and helicopters from the United States Navy , the United States Marine Corps and the United States Coast Guard .
The west wing of the building is dedicated to naval aviation in World War II and houses a 1: 1 replica of the flight deck of the light aircraft carrier USS Cabot (CVL-28) . The SBD-2 Dauntless and the only remaining SB2U Vindicator also come from this time . Foreign samples from the Second World War include A. A Kawanishi N1K , a Mitsubishi A6M and a Messerschmitt Me 262 on display. A Sopwith Camel , a Hanriot HD.1 , a Nieuport 28 and a Fokker D.VII come from the time of the First World War .
Other exhibits include four A-4 Skyhawk from the Blue Angels aerobatic team , the S-3 Viking , in which George W. Bush flew to the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and which was the first aircraft to receive the radio call sign " Navy One " the NC-4 , the first flying boat to cross the Atlantic. From the space sector , the museum owns the command capsule for one of the Apollo spaceships , serial number CSM-116, the capsule that was used for Skylab 2 . Since 2007, the restored gondola of the former Navy airship L-8 and later Goodyear - Werbeblimps shown.
See also
Web links
- National Naval Aviation Museum. Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, accessed January 4, 2019 (English, official homepage).
Coordinates: 30 ° 20 ′ 58 " N , 87 ° 18 ′ 13" W.