Centennial of Naval Aviation

On Feb 12th (sorry about the delay), Fred and I visited the Centennial of Naval Aviation Open House at North Island, San Diego, CA.




It was a mob scene. An estimated 70000 people attended. Traffic was stopped dead going over the Coronado Bridge. At least they had a good view of the flyover.




We managed to get in and parked in a relatively short time by heading south of Coronado and then approaching via the Silver Strand instead of trying to cross the bridge. Soon we were parked and visiting the exhibits.




The second largest helicopter in the world, after a Russian copter. The Osprey is supposed to replace this.



We went on board an amphibious assault ship, the Peleliu. The view of San Diego from the ship's deck.




The view of the carrier USS Stennis from the deck of the Peleliu. The Navy top brass were viewing the procedings from the deck of the Stennis.

We had a long warm day of walking and photography. It was fascinating to see all the planes from many different eras of Naval aviation. Many Navy people were there with their families, showing them the planes and ships they work or worked on.

There are more pics from the day on my Picassa album.  Click on it to see the pictures full size and with captions.:


We ended the day at a great "Coffee Shop" in Coronado. I was thinking it was a Starbucks kind of place. But it was more a 50s era restaurant. Think Hot Shoppe (for those who know what that is) meets a diner. It even had a juke box with 45 rpm records (again, for those of you who know what those are) and an old fashioned cash register!
-- Posted from my iPad!