Blue Angels Homecoming Air Show 2026

The Blue Angels Homecoming Air Show is the air show with which Naval Air Station Pensacola, in Florida, closes each autumn the season of the United States Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels. It is not one more stop on the calendar: it is the performance in which the team returns to its own base and ends the year in front of its own city, at the airfield where it trains and operates. Hence the name «homecoming», and hence the fact that the bill is built around that final display rather than spread across several attractions of similar weight.

The venue is Sherman Field, the main runway complex at the Pensacola naval air station, presented by the event's own promotion as the «Cradle of Naval Aviation». It is organised by the Navy's Morale, Welfare & Recreation (MWR) programme in Pensacola, which stages it annually and always in the autumn. General admission is free —premium seating can be bought for those who want a reserved place— and so is parking on the base, with shuttle buses to the flight line; the gates close once capacity is reached, since admission is first come, first served. Weapons, alcohol, coolers, large bags, outside food and drink, pets, bicycles and drones are banned, while folding chairs, blankets, wheelchairs, cameras, strollers and umbrellas are allowed.

The team that gives the festival its meaning was created in 1946 at the direction of Admiral Chester Nimitz, with the twin task of showcasing naval aviation skill and sustaining postwar morale. Its first public performance at an air show took place in June of that same year at Craig Field, in Jacksonville. Pensacola is both the birthplace of naval aviation and the permanent home of the demonstration team, so the November show does not put the squadron in front of just any audience, but in front of the community that lives alongside it all year round.

The squadron's history includes a support fleet that the show itself publicises. In 1949 it became necessary to operate a transport aircraft to move personnel and equipment between show sites: the Douglas R4D Skytrain, the Curtiss R5C Commando, the Douglas R5D Skymaster and the Lockheed C-121 Super Constellation all served in that role. In 1970 the team received the Lockheed C-130, known ever since by the nickname «Fat Albert», which remains the support aircraft and an attraction of the programme in its own right.

Being a military event, the homecoming depends on the Navy being able to commit resources to it, and that has left it uncelebrated on several documented occasions. In 2013 the budget sequestration that cut discretionary defence spending forced the cancellation of most of the squadron's season: the Navy called off more than thirty displays scheduled through November of that year. In 2020 the Pensacola edition was suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And in 2025 it fell again: the show planned for 14 and 15 November was cancelled over the lapse in federal funding, with base leadership citing funding shortfalls and contracting delays as well as restrictions on non-essential travel during the government shutdown. A retired Marine Corps officer, Major Paul Entrekin, described at the time the damage the cancellation does to pilots in their final year with the team, who are left without their farewell at home.

Those cancellations give the measure of what the show moves in the city. The Visit Pensacola tourism bureau estimates that the air show weekend leaves more than 2.5 million dollars in the local economy and draws in the order of 250,000 attendees, with work for vendors, caterers and shuttle operators. The attendance figures published by the different sources do not agree with one another, so this sheet does not adopt any of them as official.

The 2026 edition is called for Friday 6 and Saturday 7 November at NAS Pensacola. Gates open at 8:00 a.m. on both days and the flying programme starts at 9:30; the Blue Angels fly at around 2:00 p.m. on both days. The bill announced by the organisers brings together, besides the squadron and «Fat Albert», the demonstration teams of the Navy's F-35C Lightning II and the Air Force's F-16 Viper, the Stearman Flight Team, the SOCOM Para-Commandos parachute team and a long list of civilian aerobatic acts: Mike Goulian, Redline Airshows, Adam Baker Airshows, Brian Correll AirShows, RAD Aerosports, GhostWriter, Rusty «Crash» Miller, «Doc» Serrato, Tanner Matheny, Jeff Shetterly, Tom Larkin's MiniJet and the ground display of Precision Exotics. On the same base, the National Naval Aviation Museum —more than 4,000 artefacts and over 150 restored aircraft— opens from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the show.

For those who do not enter the base, the event's promotion recommends two viewing alternatives: Fort Pickens, which requires a digital pass, and boat tours, best booked in advance. Access to the base requires REAL ID-compliant identification.