Look into the cockpits of these vintage aircraft on April 21 and 22, and learn about their history from the crews who have lovingly restored them.

This month we present three planes that featured big in training US Navy pilots: the F-14A Tomcat, F-16N Viper, and F-5E Tiger II. During various training scenarios and programs, the F-16 and F-5 were flown as enemy “aggressor” airplanes  because their performance closely matched that of the enemy planes our Navy pilots were likely to encounter. Pilots in F-14s would square off against experienced pilots in the aggressor planes, until the good guys in the F-14s learned how to beat them.

The F-14, F-16, and F-5 are on loan from the National Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola, Florida.

Find out more about the F-14A Tomcat, the F-16N Viper, and the F-5E TigerII.

Open Cockpit weekends at the Pacific Coast Air Museum are your chance to get up close to selected aircraft and look inside. We raise the canopies and open the doors to give you an unobstructed view so you can see what a genuine fighter plane, attack plane, transport, helicopter, or other type is like from the inside!