Naval Air Station Pensacola Forrest Sherman Field |
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Summary | |||||||||||||||||||
Airport type | Military: Naval Air Station | ||||||||||||||||||
Operator | United States Navy | ||||||||||||||||||
Location | Escambia County, near Pensacola, Florida | ||||||||||||||||||
Built | 1913 | ||||||||||||||||||
In use | Active | ||||||||||||||||||
Commander | Captain Christopher Martin | ||||||||||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 28 ft / 8.5 m | ||||||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 30°21′09″N 087°19′04″W / 30.35250°N 87.31778°W | ||||||||||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||||||||||
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Naval Air Station Pensacola or NAS Pensacola (IATA: NPA, ICAO: KNPA, FAA LID: NPA) (formerly NAS/KNAS until changed circa 1970 to allow Nassau International Airport, now Lynden Pindling International Airport, to have IATA code NAS), "The Cradle of Naval Aviation", is a United States Navy base located next to Warrington, Florida, a community southwest of the Pensacola city limits. It is best known as the initial primary training base for all Navy, Marine and Coast Guard aviators and Naval Flight Officers, the advanced training base for most Naval Flight Officers, and as the home base for the United States Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, the precision-flying team known as the Blue Angels. Because of contamination by heavy metals and other hazardous materials during this history, it is designated as a Superfund site needing environmental cleanup.
The air station also hosts the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) and the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute (NAMI), which provides training for all naval flight surgeons, aviation physiologists, and aviation experimental psychologists. With the closure of Naval Air Station Memphis in Millington, Tennessee and the transition of that facility to Naval Support Activity Mid-South, NAS Pensacola also became home to the Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC), providing technical training schools for nearly all enlisted aircraft maintenance and enlisted aircrew specialties in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard. The NATTC facility at NAS Pensacola is also home to the USAF Detachment 1, a GSU whose home unit is the 359th TRS located at Eglin AFB. Detachment 1 trains over 800 Airmen annually in three structural maintenance disciplines: Low Observable, Non-Destructive Inspection, and Aircraft Structural Maintenance.