Once referred to as “The Cradle of Naval Aviation,” Naval Air Station Pensacola (NAS Pensacola) is best known as the primary training base for Navy and Marine aviators and as the home base for the Blue Angels precision flying team. The base is located in Warrington, Florida, and contains Forrest Sherman Field and the former Pensacola Navy Yard. A total of 110,000 flight operations are initiated each year from Sherman Field’s 131 operating aircraft.
Residents of Forrest Sherman Field include VT-4 Warbucks, VT-10 Wildcats and VT-86 Sabrehawks squadrons (flying T-2 Buckeye, T-6A Texan II, T-6 T-39 Sabreliner and T-1 Jayhawk aircraft), the Blue Angels Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron (flying F/A-18 Hornets), the 2nd German Air Force Training Squadron USA and the NAS Pensacola Search and Rescue detachment (flying UH-3H Sea King helicopters), which together make up the Training Air Wing Six.
01. Overview
Naval Air Station Pensacola Overview
The first onsite construction at Pensacola Bay took place in 1826. The original purpose of the yard was to suppress slave trade and piracy throughout the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The base was rebuilt after the Civil War to be used as a naval yard, but by 1911, the yard had fallen into disuse and was decommissioned. The site became the location of the first Aeronautic Center in 1913, and in the following year, a flight school was established.
The USS Langley (CV-1), the Navy’s first aircraft carrier, was based at the Pensacola station for several months in 1922 and then again in 1923. In March 1928, the Lexington (CV-3) came to the Pensacola Navy Yard to carry out further experiments in naval aviation. Thousands of naval pilots received training at Pensacola Navy Yard and its auxiliary fields during World War II.
Today, this site is revered as a historic landmark. It is home to the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute and the Blue Angels—a group of pilots who give flight demonstrations for the public. It also serves as home base for the USS Lexington (AVT 16), a veteran warship that educated students in the art of taking off from and landing on a seagoing airfield.
When Hurricane Ivan damaged 43 buildings at the site, the National Trust for Historic Preservation fought hard against plans to bulldoze them. Despite the National Trust’s protests, the site lost 33 of its buildings, which had held official landmark status since 1976. The station was first constructed in 1826, and since then, it has been rebuilt several times. Pensacola was the country’s only naval air station through WWI, and it was the first military base to train pilots.
