The Naval Air Station Pensacola will open its gates to the public for a weekend of access on March 25 and 26. The public access will be available from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. through the West Gate only on Blue Angel Parkway. Visitors who are 18 years old and above are required to present a valid photo ID, such as a driver’s license or passport.
Access will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, and will be dependent on available parking at the NNAM and Pensacola Lighthouse. Once the parking is full, public access will be halted until more parking becomes available.
Retired Rear Admiral Kyle Cozad, who heads the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, is happy to hear of the mayor’s efforts to open NAS Pensacola more often to the general public.
“We’ve got a national museum that the folks who live here in our community feel like it’s a piece of their identity. Over the past four years of being close to the public, we’ve lost probably two million visitors that have been denied the opportunity to come into the museum.”
He continued, “And that’s priority one for me every single day is to continue to needle at this. It’s like eating an elephant, one bite at a time. It’s never going to come quickly enough for me and certainly not for anyone else who wants to visit. But we’re making modest progress.”
Adm. Cozad pointed out nearly 18,000 signed an online petition to open the base to museum visitors. “We’ve got political support from the mayor all the way up to our senators and congressmen. The Secretary of the Navy has stated his commitment to this. It’s the people in the middle—‘the iron majors’—who have to come up with the plan and resources to be able to support something like this.”
