Had an opportunity to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. It’s an excellent museum by all means. Easily one of the top 3 in the United States. One unique feature of this museum is that you can walk up and touch all the aircraft. Need to see how the landing gear bay was painted? Easy, just crawl under the plane and snap a few pictures.

My photos from the museum will be broken into several different parts, as there are a LOT of aircraft, models, plaques and equipment to see.

Located in Pensacola, FL

Fat Man telemetry round. They redid the portion of the museum and it looks really nice now. Lots of new exhibits and ways they are presenting information.

BFC-2 Goshawk

F3H Demon

FJ Fury

A6M Zero, notice the holes cut in the seat. That is because the Japanese were obsessed with weight saving.

Early F4U Corsair with the early production “Birdcage” canopy.

OS2U Kingfisher, much like the one on the USS North Carolina.

I’m not 100% sure what this is. Maybe some sort of lighting?

One little bitty helo.

From the Lake Michigan exhibit. It’s really well done!

SBD Dauntless, this example is a survivor of Pearl Harbor and Midway.

Next post will cover Korean War era aircraft!