National Naval Aviation Museum 12-13-2014

Saturday, December 13, 2014

We headed out in our rental car to Pensacola and the National Naval Aviation Museum.  Using Kathy’s phone GPS,  we charted our route, and discovered that it would take us 3 hours to travel the 100 plus miles…whether by freeway or local routes!
So we took the local routes there, and the freeway back.  And lo and behold, it took the 3 hours either way!

The first realization that we were, after all, at a military base, was going through the checkpoint. A stern man  in, of course, aviator sunglasses, and packing a weapon stopped us and asked to see Tim's ID.  Intimidating, to be sure.  ]

We wound our way to the museum itself.

It was amazing.  First of all, it is free.  There were IMAX movies for a fee. We would have liked to have gone, but by the end of the day, we just ran out of time.

Just as we started to talk to one of the folks at the reception desk, we were informed that the trolley ride out on the tarmac was about to begin, just in case we were interested.

We hopped on the trolley, and were treated to a tour of all the airplanes that were either operational, or were being worked on.  The tour guide was a Vietnam era ace who had flown many of the planes.

After that, we returned to the museum itself, were informed that a guided tour of the museum would start at 1 PM, and we had about enough time to wander through the second floor, which was not part of the guided tour.

The second floor included several flight simulations…neither of us had the stomach for those, and the cockpits of several fighter planes.  All of which you could get into and sit.  Boy, were they small.

One of the exhibits included the actual raft that the crew from "Unbroken" lived in before being captured by the Japanese.  How tiny that was.

Actual raft that Louis Zamperini and crew lived on for 47 days

We wandered down to meet our tour guide, and was he a kick!  We figured him to be about 70 years old, and he had on his bomber jacket and all of his medals.  His name was Captain Billy.


Captain Billy making a point



Taking the tour with Captain Billy

He was very knowledgeable and very entertaining.  The exhibits spanned the time from earliest flight to modern days.  All of the planes were actual, and not reproductions.

And unlike so many museums where the “do not touch” rule is enforced, folks were encouraged to touch most of the exhibits.

A part of the Blue Angels' exhibit

A few interesting facts that we got from Captain Billy:

• The wings on early planes were made of fabric
• The tradition of fighter pilots wearing a silk scarf came from bravado.  It was unmanly to wear a parachute.  Not so unmanly to use the parachute fabric to clean oil and debris from one's face.  Hang the fabric around your neck, and it looked very natty.  The fashion caught on!
• When the exhibit of the Blue Angels was hung, it was criticized, because the planes in the formation were not close enough.  The fact was that the museum couldn't hang them as close as the planes actually fly.

While it made Kathy sad that so much was put into the effort of warIt was a high point of our trip. If you ever have the chance to visit, do so

And on the way home to our marina, we were able to see the tail end of the Panama City Boat Parade as the decorated boats made their way across the harbor.  A lovely ending to a lovely day.

More plans to be made tomorrow.