Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum History, Renovations, and Now

Visit the Pearl Harbor Historic Sites and see informative reenactments, authentic exhibits and guided tours that enable you to travel back in time to experience the chilling sights and sounds of the two-hour attack that wounded 1,282 Americans and killed 2,402.

The Navy offered the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum $250,000 toward renovation of the control tower’s elevator in exchange for their support of the plan which the museum declined. The Navy expressed concerns about this plan as Ford Island remains an active military installation. In 2013 the museum planned to host 1,500 Chinese nationals from Amway China on Ford Island who were particularly interested in the Flying Tigers exhibit. Originally, it flew with the Japanese air group in the Solomon Islands. It was sold to the Confederate Air Force for use in air shows and later sold to the museum in 2006. The trenches were created after the island was warned that the Japanese had planned to use the island as a forward operating base. It was registered as a category 1 structure in the 1978 Pearl Harbor Naval Base Historic Preservation Plan and is being restored by Kiewit Building Group; the same contractor who built the museum. It received support from former US astronaut Captain Walter Schirra while as, executive director of the San Diego Air & Space Museum, Allan Palmer was hired by the United States Air Force to conduct a feasibility study on an aviation museum in Hawaii and then hired as its executive direction and chief executive operating officer. The original museum was called the Military Aviation Museum of the Pacific.

The focus devoted efforts to restoring the Ford Island control tower and signed a lease with the Navy to begin repairs. Admission tickets: travel desks, Pear Harbor Visitor Center, or online at Open 8 to 5 daily. Occupies WWII hangars that bear the scars of the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack.

Senator Inouye proposed a $500,000,000 “rebirth” of Ford Island through special legislation to authorize the Navy to sell land to fund the rebirth. After the September 11 attacks , the Pacific Aerospace Museum operation was suspended by the state and finally removed two years later. The first phase of the museum opened in 1991 and was founded by Frank Der Yuen. The idea for the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum began on the anniversary of the victory over Japan in 1995.