Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum

Whether you’re visiting Hawaii for a week or have lived there for years, no tour of Oahu is complete without a trip to Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum in Honolulu. Located on historic Ford Island, it is ranked as one of the country’s top aviation attractions by TripAdvisor.If your family is visiting Pearl Harbor and the U.S.S. Arizona, take a quick trip to Ford Island via a shuttle bus to visit this fascinating aviation museum — you won’t regret it. Your tour will begin in Hangar 37, where you will find World War II aircraft housed inside a former seaplane hangar that survived the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Then it’s on to in Hangar 79, where you’ll see actual Pearl Harbor attack bullet holes and battle damage in the windows of the historic hangar that’s filled with warbirds, helicopters, jets, and the aircraft restoration shop.After exploring both hangars, check out the museum’s interactive combat flight simulators, which allow you to experience what it’s like to dogfight with enemy aircraft. You also can grab a quick bite at the Laniakea Café and pick up a souvenir at the museum store on your way out. The gift shop features an array of amazing items, including clothing, aircraft models, and patriotic décor.Take your family on a trip through history and gain a greater respect for our nation’s airmen and airwomen with a visit to Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum in Honolulu… Established in 2006. The founders of Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum are John Sterling of Matson Terminals, Inc.; Donn Parent, at that time the Director of the Pacific Aerospace Museum at the Honolulu International Airport; Adm. Ron Hays, former CINCPAC Commander and at the time Chairman of the Pacific Aerospace Museum; and, Clint Churchill, Campbell Estate Trustee and former F15 Pilot and Commander of the Hawaii Air National Guard.Exploring various venues for an aviation museum on Oahu, John Sterling first contacted the Navy in 1996 about locating an aviation museum in the existing hangars on Ford Island. Simultaneously, Donn Parent and Adm. Ron Hays had just resurrected the Pacific Aerospace Museum at the airport. A brainstorming meeting determined that an aviation museum on Ford Island was right – where better to tell the story of aviation in the Pacific, presenting the connections between aviation, people and history, beginning with the events at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941?