How Pensacola became where naval aviators are made — for 110 years and counting
In 1914 the US Navy commissioned a new training facility at Pensacola, Florida, on the site of Fort Barrancas — a Civil War-era coastal battery. It was the first naval aviation training base in the country. By 1918 every naval aviator in the United States had passed through Pensacola. By 1945 more than 28,000 had earned their wings on these runways and these bays. The pattern never broke. Today Pensacola still trains every Navy and Marine Corps aviator the country produces; the Blue Angels live here. The National Naval Aviation Museum holds the SBD Dauntless that helped sink Akagi at Midway, the F-14 Tomcat that flew off USS America, and an Apollo 7 command module — all under one roof, free admission. The runways have changed. The mission has not.