National Naval Aviation Museum

It's my 68th birthday today. I got lots of calls and e-cards from family and friends. Thanks, all!

We got up this morning and spent an hour finishing the cleanup of love bugs from the end cap and the truck. We had a real sense of accomplishment, but we also know that it's an ongoing battle.

Then we showered and dressed and headed to Pensacola to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum. We have visited two other major national aerospace museums: the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (in Washington, DC, and Chantilly, VA) and the National Museum of the US Air Force (at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH). You can probably see a trend here, keeping in mind that Ken's field is aerospace engineering....

The museum in Pensacola is free. The buildings were funded entirely by private contributions, though the Navy now maintains them. Countless volunteer hours go into restoring the exhibits and guiding tours. We took a trolley tour of the flight line, guided by a retired pilot who served in the Navy and later flew for Fedex. His knowledge and enthusiasm were evident, and besides that, he was quite entertaining.

We also watched an IMAX film called "The Magic of Flight." Although it's about flight in general, it focuses on the Navy Blue Angels. We learned a lot about the training of the Blue Angels pilots and saw some really dramatic and stomach turning footage filmed from the cockpit of a Blue Angels jet. It is amazing that anyone can withstand the G forces involved in the formation and stunt flying, as the land and sky swirl around and go through what seem to be kaleidoscopic transformations, and still be in complete control of the aircraft. The pilots learn to use their muscles to force blood to stay in their heads so they won't black out.

The displays were a bit overwhelming to us. Despite having a map, we seemed to be disoriented most of the time, and there was just too much to see and take in. Probably it would take several visits to sort everything out.

The bottom line is that the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum has the broadest coverage of all facets of flight. Its displays are well organized and interpreted. We think we'd like to go back and spend more time at this and other Smithsonian museums.


I made pizza for dinner tonight, and we had ice cream with hot fudge topping for dessert, the end to a sweet day. We'll go out to eat when we're in New Orleans. And Ken washed the dishes!