Tuscon, AZ - Tour of the Boneyard

The past couple days have been busy. I spent just about all day yesterday working on some preventive maintenance on the motor home, including resealing the front Marker lights, the slide trim pieces, and the glass window in the entry door. I like doing this sort of work; I feel a sense of satisfaction at getting things done, and find comfort in the fact that we are taking care of our rolling home.

F-4E Phantom II

Today was a sightseeing day. We were at the nearby Pima Air & Space Museum by 8:45am, and it's a good thing we got there early - turns out this place is very popular! The Pima Air & Space Museum is one of the world's largest aerospace museums, In fact, it is the largest privately-funded nongovernmental museum of its type, curating a collection or more than 300 commercial, private, and military aircraft. This museum is impressive and I highly recommend a visit by anyone with an interest in aviation.

All that said, our primary purpose for visiting the Pima Air & Space Museum was to get a tour of the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Although we are both Air Force retirees and have access to the base, the Boneyard is off-limits unless you are visiting in some official capacity. So we went over to the Museum and signed up for their Boneyard tour. Through a special Support Agreement with AMARG and Davis-Monthan AFB, the Pima Air & Space Museum is the exclusive operator of the "Boneyard" tour. Visitors are ID-checked, loaded onto a tour bus, and then driven over to the AMARG Boneyard on the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

H-2 Huey and other Helicopters

AMARG was established in 1946 to house B-29 and C-47 aircraft. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base was chosen because of Tucson's low humidity, infrequent rainfall, alkaline soil and high altitude of 2,550 feet. These environmental factors result in comparatively little rust and corrosion, and the hard soil makes it possible to park and move aircraft around without having to pave the storage areas. In recent years, AMARG has been designated the sole repository of out-of-service aircraft from all branches of the US government.

AMARG takes care of more than 4,400 aircraft,  - I think this makes it the largest aircraft storage and preservation facility in the world. 

Free-standing engines & pod containers with engines

The Boneyard is where old military and other aircraft are stationed either to be (1) stored indefinitely for possible future use, (2) cannibalized for parts to keep the flying fleet in the air (parts are no longer produced for many of America's military active aircraft), (3) restored for service, or (4) recycled for metals and other materials. The organization that owns each aircraft decides what will be done with that asset and AMARG makes it happen.

F-117 Stealth Fighter... or is it?

We both really enjoyed this tour. I saw many old "friends" during the tour, including F-16s, C-130s, C-5s, C-141s, KC-135s, and even a C-20 Gulfstream. I've flown on all these types of aircraft during my 20+ years of service. However, they are just a small sampling - there many, many more types of aircraft from all branches of the service in the Boneyard. For example, we saw an F-117 Steath Fighter... sorta. Hahahaa!

It was all fascinating!  See more pics below.

After the Boneyard tour, we returned to the Pima Air & Space Museum and walked around some more, enjoying some of their static displays. Although we could have easily spent the entire day there, we had more sightseeing to do and so we left around noon.

C-20 Gulfstream