Pensacola Aviation Museum (non specific but includes P-40, early Grumman biplanes, N1K1, Bearcat, F7F, PB2Y and others) (1 Viewer)

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

Kind of tricky to get to, it's on the Navy base and google sends you to the wrong gate. But it was worth the effort. Very interesting museum.
(edit: with Fubars help I got these embedded in the post)

View attachment 544215
Early biplane flying boat (not sure what make)

View attachment 544216
Early Curtiss hawk family biplane fighter

View attachment 544217
Grumman FF fighter

View attachment 544218
Grumman F2F fighter - looks much more 'tubby' than the FF. You can definitely see the family resemblance to the Wildcat

View attachment 544219
Vought Vindicator scout / dive bomber (was surprised to see rear fuselage is covered with fabric)

View attachment 544220
Yellow floatplane (make and model unknown)

View attachment 544221
Tomahawk IIb / P-40 / Hawk 81 fighter (I posted several more photos of this one in the P-40 thread)

View attachment 544222
Ball Turret from a B-24

View attachment 544223
N1K1 or K2, Shiden Kai "George" - very rare!

View attachment 544224
Closeup of automatic maneuvering flaps on the George
View attachment 544225
SBD Dauntless
View attachment 544226
SBD dauntless again (because it's the plane that won the Pacific war!)

View attachment 544227
OS2U "Kingfisher"

View attachment 544228
PB2Y - Coronado. They said this huge thing was the personal transport for Admiral Nimitz

View attachment 544229
F8F Bearcat. Very impressive, clean lines, small plane.

View attachment 544230I think they were called Tiger Cats
F7F Tigershark

View attachment 544231
Martin AM-1 'Mauler' (Thanks Capt. Vic)
View attachment 544232
Cutaway view of PBY Catalina (very interesting display)

View attachment 544233
Rear view of an (I think) F2G or F1G Corsair. They had several Corsairs in the muesum.
 
-Is that B-24 turret from a PB4Y or one of the late marks B-24?
-The Curtiss trainer is a "Falcon" SNC-1
-RE: getting on base. Check the Museum website https://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/ for the proper gate address. The museum directions from I-10 are a pain but from US 98 the entrance was well marked the last time I was there.
-The website has a really interesting virtual tour.
-If you go, and have some time, check out the museum library. They have some great books from the "Golden Age" worth perusing.
 

Attachments

  • SNC-1.jpg
    SNC-1.jpg
    125.7 KB · Views: 58
Absolutely my favorite museum . . . I've some things I've earmarked to go to them "when I'm done with them" artifacts, original documents, stuff I am sure absolutely certain no one else, even the USN, has . . . for example, side panels from a VF-11 F4F-4 of the Guadalcanal 1943 vintage (see my avatar).

Do they still have the wood panels from the von Tempsky house on Maui? Last I saw them they were somewhere on the left after you enter . . . all those signatures from WW2 naval aviators, my father's was on one of the left hand panels.
 
Last edited:
-Is that B-24 turret from a PB4Y or one of the late marks B-24?
-The Curtiss trainer is a "Falcon" SNC-1
-RE: getting on base. Check the Museum website https://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/ for the proper gate address. The museum directions from I-10 are a pain but from US 98 the entrance was well marked the last time I was there.
-The website has a really interesting virtual tour.
-If you go, and have some time, check out the museum library. They have some great books from the "Golden Age" worth perusing.

I don't know about the turret, there were actually two turrets on display, here is the other one:

20190707_145157.jpg

That ball-turret looked really, really small and cramped. And especially scary since I know what used to sometimes happen if the hydraulics went out on a mission...
 
Sure thing. Recommend a visit to that place, I've been to many aircraft museums and parks but this one was definitely next level. I'm not sure how many of those carriers they had but it must have been at least a dozen of them. 8 or 9 right by the front door (to the left) and then another 4 or 5 scattered around the main building. I didn't even have time to go to the second building yet but will go back again one day.
 
I grew up about 2 miles as the crow flies from the museum. As a child, I used to run scared from the yellow SNJs flying overhead in the landing pattern. We also watched the Blue Angels practice from my back yard, all the way back to when they were flying F9F Cougars. They also flew right over the house when landing. I remember when the museum was nothing more than a shack with the D-558-1 Skystreak parked outside. Great airshows! I grew up on Naval aviation, knew all their aircraft from WW2 onward. And, because a Naval Flight Surgeon failed to sign my physical, I ended up flying for the Air Force. o_O Worked out good for me, though. Got to fly two great aircraft, the T-38 and the C-141, and picked up a wife of 48 years.

I believe the Dauntless aircraft shown participated in the Battle of Midway.

The best museum from a presentation stand point. Smithsonian has the most famous of the aircraft (like the Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis, etc.) and the AF museum has more variety, as you would expect, (including the very C-141 I had flown once. It was the one that brought the prisoners home from N. Vietnam.) But the presentation at the Naval Museum is outstanding.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back