Tuesday 10th January – National Naval Aviation Museum

We decided straight away this morning that one night at Big lagoon would not be enough, so we booked in for an extra night on our way out on the short drive to Pensacola Naval Air Station.

Access to the Naval aviation museum is free but they welcome donations.  This is incredible for such an extensive and impressive collection of aircraft and memorabilia.

Anyone feel old? 25 Years since operation Desert Storm.... and now it will be 26 years!

No, this isn't Harvey.  We spotted his slightly smaller cousin though, the first exact copy we've seen!

We started with the tour of the Boneyard – aircraft that have been donated to the museum and were either mid-renovation or awaiting work:

Skyhawk

Next we made our donation to the museum, whilst also gaining the experience of riding in a simulator flying an F18 Hornet.  Our allotted four-minutes went extremely quickly.  The simulator was set up so that it could turn completely upside-down and vertical, it was incredible.  I was glad my lunch had gone down.

We timed this perfectly to be prepared for the start of a one and a half hour guided tour of some of the exhibits in the museum. Our guide was very much into the birth of flight and had great knowledge on some of the first ground-breaking aircraft:

NC-4 the Navy Curtiss flying boat - the first plane ever to cross the Atlantic in May 1919 (with re-fuelling)

This left us with about half an hour to explore another hanger full of aircraft.  Today was yet another example of us being asked to leave an American museum at closing time!

President Nixon's helicopter (he appears to still be aboard)

Simon's favourite - the last combat F14 Tomcat - final flight was on February 8th 2006 over Iraq

The truculent turtle - holder of the World record for longest continuous flight without refuelling - 11,235.6 miles

The world's first operational jet fighter, the ME-262 which first flew in 1942

We had intended to also visit the lighthouse and museum but we only had enough time for some external photos.

We returned to our site.  It was an evening of rain showers so it was another crazy night in, writing the blog, but also viewing President Obama’s farewell address live on TV, which I found quite emotional.  Only 10 days until Trump’s inauguration.... what could possibly go wrong?!