23. April 2025
Home » Travel » Travel Reviews » Museums & Exhibitions » San Diego Air & Space Museum
Museums & Exhibitions

San Diego Air & Space Museum

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

San Diego Air & Space Museum

San Diego Air & Space Museum
4.3

Rating

 4.3/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Nice museum with surprisingly many exhibiton
  • Included in Balboa Explorer Pass
  • Interesting Space section
  • Not very balanced, well-done presentation

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Single admission to high
  • Some parts a bit narrow

Balboa Park in San Diego feels to be a place of a sheer endless number of attractions. Even though I visited the city in California at the end of 2023, there are still some postings outstanding. One of the gaps I close in my coverage is this review. I take you to the San Diego Air and Space Museum.

 

 

San Diego Air & Space Museum – Location & Admission

The San Diego Air & Space Museum is located in the Southwest part of Balboa Park. Thus, the closest attractions there are the San Diego Automotive Museum and the Comic-Con Museum. You can reach Balboa Park with public transport options, but as parking is free, most visitors come by car. On peak days, you should arrive early to avoid running into parking hassle. Two planes, a Convair YF2Y-1 Seadart and a Lockheed A-12, are placed in front of the museum.

The San Diego Air and Space Museum is opening daily, from 10:00 to 16:30. I would recommend a visiting time of at least 90 minutes. The adult admission is comparably high, 30 USD for adults. However, whenever you visit Balboa Park, I recommend buying the Balboa Explorer Pass, which either gives you admission to a number of attraction or all participating attractions within a given time span. The Parkwide Pass, which allows visiting each attraction once within seven consecutive days, is 72 USD at the time of writing. The key attractions not participating are San Diego Zoo and the Comic Con Museum mentioned above.

 

San Diego Air & Space Museum – The Visit

The San Diego Air & Space Museum is a major circular building. You can might the exhibition in any direction, but should do it anti-clockwise. There is a rotunda-alike central square, around which the attraction is arranged. Right at the entrance, the section Milestones of Flight welcomes you with introducing you to flight pioneers. Overall, the museum makes very good use of the limited space. Here and there that also means that the museum is a bit of packed. The signs and interactive screens are in English and Spanish. You can access just very few  of the planes.

As you see on the pictures, there is a certain focus on military aviation, even though there are spots of civil aviation at the San Diego Air & Space Museum as well. With World War I, Golden Age and World War II, there is a spotlight on that era of flying. Thereby, the museum does not only have planes (a few ones are replicas), but also quite a couple of other exhibits. I also liked that the museum is not too US-biased. For example Graf Zeppelin and the Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen, two Germans, have quite some presence in “their” sections of the exhibition as well. Before you enter Pavilion of Flight in the center of the museum, you close with the Jet Age & Beyond.

Space Exhibition

You visit the Space section quite early during your visit, right before you make it to World War I. Despite that part of the museum has quite some mock-ups, it is a quite cool part of the museum. A key reason for that is that it is much more illustrative, structured and interactive than the remaining part of the museum. You also learn about previous space missions or can try the Space Shuttle “simulator”. I really liked that part of the museum.

 

San Diego Air & Space Museum – Services

The museum drives a small cafe. There is also a 4D theater and a small place for children. Furthermore, there are a few flight simulators. Next to the entrance you also pass the souvenir store area. However, there were comparably few items for aviation nerds – it rather focused on small visitors. The staff was helpful during my visit.

 

San Diego Air & Space Museum – My View

The San Diego Air & Space Museum is definitely a nice place to visit. The limited space and the rather aggressive pricing are downsides, even though the museum makes great use of the space available. I would not go for a solo visit there. However, doing the museum as part as a Balboa Park Explorer Pass trip (which you should do generally…), it is absolutely worth a visit.

 

Technical Museums in the USA

Here are all postings related to Technical Museums and the USA:

 

Flyctory.com in San Diego

Here are all my postings related to San Diego in California:

You might also like

Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum

Senator John Heinz History Center Pittsburgh

Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *