Pensacola News Journal from Pensacola, Florida • 78

8F; Pgnsacpla News JoqrnaL 1 Sunday, November 2j 1989: More aircraft, space in store for museum 0j Xjmr By Beth Ramirez News Journal The National Museum of Naval Aviation at Pensacola Air Station is ready with its new name and improved national standing as a tourist attraction to welcome even more visitors. The museum, which took on its new name in May, also will enter the next decade with doubled exhibition space and even more military aircraft on display. Kendall Hardin, director of marketing at the museum foundation, said new exhibit modules will be completed by October 1990, and will include three new entryways, a full-size re-creation of an aircraft carrier control center, and a seven-story glass-and-steel atrium dedicated to the Blue Angels. Last year, about 500,000 people visited the museum. By the time the museum is expanded, officials hope to attract more than 2 million visitors per year.

More additions will follow over the next two years, including a large-screen IMAX theater that can seat more than 300 people. "It's always been a long-range plan since they started the museum to really be this large," Hardin said. The Blue Angels Atrium will feature four suspended Blue Angels' Skyhawks and will be used for social events, military ceremonies, dinners and meetings. It will seat some 2,700 guests and have its own holding kitchen for meals, Hardin said. Designers still are working on how to get the planes inside the new module, she added.

A mezzanine near the roof of the atrium will allow visitors to look down on the planes from above, as well as from the ground floor. Construction on the atrium is already well under way. Within the central module of the new construction, workers will reconstruct the "island," or control center, of a typical mid-size World War II aircraft carrier. Museum visitors will have a close-range view of this hub of activity when they walk through, Hardin said. Money for the expansion, nearly $8 million, was raised mostly by individual contributions made to the Naval Air Museum Foundation, Hardin said.

The museum soon will feature a restored F-14 Tomcat jet fighter, the first of its kind to be publicly displayed anywhere in the world, Hardin said. The F-14, which was flown in the hit movie "Top Gun," still is used by naval aviators, and File photoNews Journal A replica of the A-l Triad, the Navy's first aircraft, along with a space capsule that was manned by a Navy crew, are all included in the National Museum of Naval Aviation. the one to be displayed at the museum is the fifth of only six test planes built by Grumman. Hardin said some parts needed to complete the plane are still missing, but museum workers hope to have the plane ready for a dedication ceremony in early November. Features of the museum include planes from the early 1900's through the Navy's newest fighter jet, the F-18, and other combat aircraft including the Hellcat, Corsair and PBY Catalinas.

One wing is devoted solely to engines of dozens of planes, dedicated to the mechanics on the ground who keep them flying. And there is plenty of space program memorabilia from the earliest Mercury flights through the space shuttle program. The original flight-blackened Skylab Command Module occupies the central main floor, along with models of the Lunar space-suit worn by astronaut Eugene Cernan, the Lunar Rover and the Mercury space capsule. The museum is free and is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Three old forts protect region's military history WE SALUTE YOU NAVAL AIR STATION PENSACOLA ON YOUR A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE NAVY CHAPLAINS FOR ALL YOUR WONDERFUL SUPPORT TOWARDS OUR MANY By Dave Goodwin News Journal Remains of three forts can be seen on land that is now the Pensacola Naval Air Station. FORT SAN CARLOS de BARRANCAS Three separate forts bore this name. 1) The fort built by the British as the Royal Navy Redoubt and renamed when Spain took over in 1781. 2) A 1797-98 fort built by Spain on the same site.

3) An 1817 fort, located about 100 yards east of the old fort. To complicate matters, this was also near the site of the 1698 Fort San Carlos de Austriana, built by Don Andres de Arriola. All that remains today is Battery San Antonio, a water level battery originally built by the British, renamed by the Spanish and rebuilt between 1796 and 1798. During the War of 1812, the Spaniards let the British occupy the Pensacola forts. Andrew Jackson arrived with 3,000 to 4,000 troops, but the Spanish stalled so long in negotiations that the British blew up San Carlos, spiked the guns at Battery San Antonio and sailed away.

In 1818, Jackson again attacked San Carlos and briefly established a U.S. military government here before the area was again returned to Spain. FORT BARRANCAS Part of the Pensacola Harbor Defense System, along 1844. At the start of the Civil War, a group of men on Jan. 8, 1861 approached the fort, were challenged by Union guards, then fired upon which local historians say were the first shots of the Civil War.

The next day, Union troops withdrew into Fort Pickens and Barrancas and other forts were occupied by Confederates. An artillery battle between Confederates and Federals on Nov. 22 and 23, 1861 rattled the windows in Pensacola, burned the towns of Warrington and Woolsey at the Pensacola Navy Yard, wrecked McRee and damaged Barrancas. Concussions from the blast killed fish in the bay. Another brief artillery battle ensued on Jan.

1, 1862. When Confederates withdrew on May, 10, 1862, they burned parts of Pensacola and the Navy Yard and other strategic holdings and spiked the guns in their forts. ADVANCED REDOUBT Also part of the Pensacola Harbor Defense System, begun in 1845 but not completed until 1859. While Pickens and McRee were to guard the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico and Barrancas was to protect against attack from the east as well as land attacks, Advanced Redoubt was built to protect Barrancas and the Navy Yard against attacks from the rear. It never saw any action.

Source: "Guardians on the Gulf, Pensa- FROM ALL OF US Waterfront Rescue Mission 1 6 W. MAIN ST. 438-4027 with Forts Pickens and McRee and Ad- at i.