Hometown Tour: NAS Pensacola

They don't call it the cradle of naval aviation for nothing.

“In terms of training on a daily basis reach out and touch almost every aspect of the department of Defense,” says Public Information Officer Harry White. If you want to fly with the US Navy, everyone gets some sort of training here. With 15,000 military personnel it's a big job.

“Every pilot in the Navy, Marine Corps, starts here at NAS Pensacola and then branch out to other bases to their training,” says White. A lot of that training time is spent in the classroom--where it's easier to run a simulator than drag a plane to the tarmac.

“Because there are some real life scenarios that we're unable to replicate and duplicate here in a training setting,” says instructor Brandon Cox. Trainees like Carlos Mercado spend hours in front of a computer or in a lab re-creating what they'll encounter in the real world.

“You see your errors instead of reading it from a book see errors and accomplishments,” says Mercado. Amid all the different training at Naval Air Station Pensacola they still stress the core mission of the base.

“Which is to keep airplanes in the air and to also instill core values that we hold true,” says Brandon Cox. There are thousands of trainees on base at any given time. Each one is exploring a different aspect of proper aviation.

“I had never worked with aircrafts and it seemed kind of interesting and exciting,” Mercado. Officials say the rigorous class work prepares trainees for their next mission in the military. This is basically how the base works. You can see, hear and learn more about Naval Air Station Pensacola by watching our next Hometown Tour live broadcast. That’ll be tonight at 6pm as we continue our “Salute to the Troops.”