National Naval Aviation Museum

Posted in Museums, Pensacola, Uncategorized on January 25, 2009


Today was one of those typical gloomy days…rainy, cloudy, and just downright depressing! We decided that we had to get the kids out of the house but we didn’t want to spend another day at the mall or Target. We decided to head to the National Naval Aviation Museum on Pensacola NAS. This is a great museum and we have been to it several times. Big S was cracking us up because he kept telling us that he wanted to get in the planes. He remembered the last trip where he got to climb inside the planes.





The Air Museum is great for all ages. There are so many exhibits, an IMAX theater that shows several movies a day, a small restaurant, a flight simulator, and lots of hands-on activities!



We started out the morning by snapping some pictures of the huge “jet plane” out front. Once inside the museum, we were given a schedule of the IMAX movies and then headed to the Cockpit Trainers. This is our favorite section of the museum! Little kids and big adults alike are encouraged to climb into the cockpits of helicopters and planes. The levers and switches still move! While you are pretending to be a pilot, you can hear sounds of fighter jets and cockpit radio transmissions played over a loud speaker. Today, you could also hear my kids counting down, yelling “BLAST OFF” and “bombs away”!


We watched the flight simulator twist and turn. We chose not to pay the extra money to try it out but the kids loved to see it move around.



If you get hungry, the museum has a restaurant called the Cubi Bar. We decided to just run through McDonald’s on our way home, but you should still drop in and see the Cubi Bar. The Cubi Bar was a bar in the Philippines. Now the plaques and pictures hang in the museum as not only a restaurant, but also another exhibit.


Free guided tours of the museum and the flight line are offered several times a day. When the Blue Angels are at home, you can go out to the museum early in the morning to watch their amazing morning practice.



After visiting the museum, we took a drive past the Pensacola Lighthouse.



All in all, we had a great time and it was nice to get out of the house on this gloomy day!

3 Responses to “National Naval Aviation Museum”

  1. 1
    nikki webb says:
    January 29, 2009 at 9:02 am

    the Cubi Bar has the bestest cookies in the world.

  2. 2
    Jen says:
    January 29, 2009 at 9:57 pm

    Haven’t tried the cookies but I remember lunch wasn’t bad!

  3. 3
    Naval Aviation Museum | Pitstops for Kids says:
    February 5, 2011 at 1:02 am

    [...] more detailed information about the museum in Jen‘s full article at Two Kids and a [...]

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  1. Naval Aviation Museum | Pitstops for Kids says:
    February 5, 2011 at 1:02 am

    [...] more detailed information about the museum in Jen‘s full article at Two Kids and a [...]


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