Following still more extensive military construction, NAS DeLand's primary focus became advanced training for Navy flight crews in land-based Lockheed PBO-1 Hudson, Lockheed PV-1 Ventura and Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer patrol bombers, as well as carrier-based Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers.

[5] When the SBD Dauntless dive bombers began to arrive, along with pilots and crew members, Ventura training was scaled back.

Samuel Hynes, who in later life was a professor at Yale University, the author of numerous books, and a participant in documentary films made by Ken Burns, was a Marine pilot in World War II.

He recounts learning to fly Dauntless dive bombers at DeLand: The planes on the flight line were old; they had come from fleet duty .

[6] In 1944, training operations in the Grumman F6F Hellcat carrier-based fighter also commenced at NAS DeLand, as well as an Advanced Carrier Navigation school for replacement pilots.

The Lake George site is still used today as part of the Navy's Pinecastle Electronic Warfare and Bombing Range[9] complex in the Ocala National Forest that is managed by NAS Jacksonville.

[2] NAS DeLand also maintained a duty watch of two sailors to patrol Lake Woodruff in the event of any nearby naval aircraft mishaps.

NAS DeLand also had responsibility for Navy Outlying Field New Smyrna Beach and bombing targets near Paisley, Hawkinsville, the Indian River Lagoon, and east of Lake Dias near DeLeon Springs.

Its control tower also closed and ownership of the air station returned to the City of DeLand as an uncontrolled civilian airport.

[12] Exhibits include an F-14B Tomcat on loan from the National Naval Aviation Museum,[13][14] PTF-3 (a former USN Nasty class torpedo boat undergoing restoration),[15] a Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber (undergoing restoration), a Korean War era H-13 Sioux MASH helicopter, a 1954 U.S. Army M38A1 jeep, military artifacts, vintage photographs, and other memorabilia.