The National Museum of Naval Aviation is located onboard Naval Air Station Pensacola.

Blue Angels in Atrium

Photo - A4 Blue Angels Hanging in atrium

Views of World War I Exhibit

Exhibits & Collections > History Up Close > Aircraft on Display (F-G) > Views of World War I Exhibit


A machine gun nest and nose of a Nieuport 28 fighter frame a battered wooden building that serves as a ready shack for aviators to relax between flights over the trenches on the Western Front.  Movements coinciding with shifting offensives along the lines meant that World War I airmen often flew from rustic airfields.
Seaplanes The museum's MF Boat sits on a wooden  seaplane ramp in front of a tent hangar reflecting how  the shoreline of Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, appeared when the first aviation personnel arrived in 1914.  The MF Boat was  part of a family of two-seat flying boats designed by Glenn Curtiss that served as trainers throughout World War I.  Early versions also logged the American military's first combat flights over Veracruz, Mexico, in 1914, and were launched from some of the Navy's earliest catapults.
During a training flight in the waters off Naval Air Station L'Aber Vrach, France, in 1918, an overzealous gunner in the nose of an HS-2L flying boat accidentally holed the propeller of his own aircraft during practice firing.  The pilot of the plane, Ensign Richard T. Whitney, kept a part of the prop as a souvenir and donated it to the museum in 1963, the year that the facility opened its door.
An overhead view of the World War I exhibit includes a Nieuport 28, one of the array of foreign-built aircraft flown by U.S. aviators overseas, and a Dodge ambulance that was actually driven to the museum by its owner.  Typical of those employed by U.S. forces during the Great War, it could carry four litters or ten walking wounded.

<<Previous    Next>>

Copyright 2007 by Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, Inc. Site Design & Development by CED & Bit-Wizards