NAVAL AIR STATION PENSACOLA
The "Cradle of Naval Aviation" and home of the Blue Angels.
OVERVIEW
Naval Air Station Pensacola is the "Cradle of Naval Aviation" — the United States Navy's first air station and the training center through which every Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard aviator passes on their way to the fleet. Located on a peninsula on the Florida Gulf Coast just southwest of Pensacola, the 5,800-acre installation supports roughly 16,000 active-duty service members and 7,400 civilian employees and serves as the headquarters of Naval Education and Training Command, the type command responsible for training and developing the Navy's enlisted and officer force.
The base hosts Naval Aviation Schools Command, the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, and the Center for Information Warfare Training, along with the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron — the Blue Angels — who have called Pensacola home since 1955. Together these tenants make NAS Pensacola one of the most important schoolhouses in the Department of the Navy: tens of thousands of Sailors and Marines complete initial flight training, aerospace medicine programs, and advanced information-warfare schools here every year.
Adjacent to the airfield, the National Naval Aviation Museum displays more than 150 restored aircraft spanning the entire history of U.S. naval flight, from the early Curtiss flying boats to modern F/A-18 strike fighters. The museum and the historic Pensacola Lighthouse make NAS Pensacola one of the most-visited Navy installations open to the public on the Gulf Coast.
KEY FACTS
- Cradle of Naval AviationAmerica's first naval air station, established 1914
- Home of the Blue AngelsU.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron based here since 1955
- National Naval Aviation MuseumOne of the largest aviation museums in the world, on-base
- Pilot Training PipelineTrains every U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard aviator
- RegionFlorida Gulf Coast, southwest of Pensacola on Naval Air Station Bayou
HISTORY
The Navy's connection to Pensacola dates to 1825, when President John Quincy Adams approved the establishment of a Navy yard on the protected waters of Pensacola Bay. The yard supported the West Indies Squadron's anti-piracy patrols, served as a Confederate facility during the Civil War, and continued operating into the early 20th century as a coal-fueled repair station for the post-Spanish-American War fleet. By 1911, however, advances in naval propulsion had rendered the yard obsolete and the Navy began searching for a new mission for the site.
That mission arrived in 1914, when the Navy stood up its first aeronautic station on the grounds of the old Pensacola Navy Yard. The fledgling Naval Aeronautic Station — soon redesignated Naval Air Station Pensacola — trained the service's earliest aviators on a handful of fragile Curtiss flying boats and Burgess pusher biplanes. World War I drove rapid expansion: by 1918, NAS Pensacola was graduating hundreds of pilots a month and had earned its enduring nickname, the "Cradle of Naval Aviation."
The interwar years saw Pensacola consolidate its role as the central training base of U.S. naval flight, and World War II accelerated growth dramatically. At its wartime peak, the installation operated multiple outlying fields and graduated more than 1,100 aviators each month, supporting the carrier-based air war in the Pacific and the convoy-escort mission in the Atlantic. After the war, NAS Pensacola transitioned to the jet age while retaining its role as the flagship pilot training base of the Navy.
The Blue Angels — the Navy's official flight demonstration team — relocated to NAS Pensacola from Corpus Christi in 1955 and have called the base home ever since, becoming as much a symbol of the installation as the airfield itself. In 1962, the Navy opened the National Naval Aviation Museum on base, gradually expanding its collection into one of the largest aviation museums in the world. Today NAS Pensacola continues to train every prospective Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard aviator, hosts a thriving information-warfare schoolhouse, and remains the spiritual home of American naval aviation.
MAJOR COMMANDS & TENANT UNITS
- Naval Education and Training Command (NETC)
- Naval Aviation Schools Command
- Center for Information Warfare Training
- Naval Aerospace Medical Institute
- U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron — the Blue Angels
- Marine Aviation Training Support Group 21/23
LOCATION & GEOGRAPHY
NOTABLE EVENTS
- 1914EstablishedCommissioned as the U.S. Navy's first naval air station.
- 1955Blue Angels ArriveThe U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron — the Blue Angels — relocated to NAS Pensacola.
- 1962Naval Aviation MuseumNational Naval Aviation Museum opened on the base; expanded continually since.