January 22, 2016

January 22, 2016

We drove with one of my visiting sisters and her husband to the Pima Air and Space Museum to sign up for one of their specialty tours.  We were hoping to join the noon excursion but it is apparently very popular so the only available spots are with the 3:30.  We have four hours to kill.  It is a beautiful sunny day so we hop in the car and head north back toward the Catalina Mountains.  At Sabino Canyon we walk the road up the canyon.  Seeing Sabino Creek full of water we make a detour and follow a trail down to the water.  A little farther along we come to an old dam that has water flowing over its face.  A big waterfall in the desert.  Who would have believed it? 

Back at the museum, we board the tour bus and get driven over to Davis-Monthan AFB.  Besides being home to a squadron of A-10 Warthogs, the base also holds the 309^th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, AMARG, affectionately known to locals as the “Boneyard”.  This is where the military stores some 4400 surplus or obsolete aircraft they aren’t yet willing to part with.  Tucson is an ideal storage location because of the dry climate and ready availability of open flat land.  (There is also a commercial storage location 40 miles northwest at Pinal Airpark.)

We are driven around this vast facility past rows and rows of large transports, fighter jets, trainer aircraft, and helicopters.  The biggest planes occupy a huge swath of territory but several dozen helicopters can be fit in the same area.  It feels like there are tens of thousands of aircraft.  The oldest planes (e.g. F4 Phantoms) reach back to the Vietnam era. 

Incoming planes first have dangerous items removed, like fuel, armaments and ejection seat actuators.  Vulnerable items are then covered with a white plastic for protection from the intense sun.  The newest planes are stored in case of WWIII breaking out.  Others are used for spare parts, but the oldest aircraft are used for target practice or are destined for disposal, either being sold or scrapped for their metal content.  750 personnel are employed here to maintain the operation.

The vastness of this facility is a testament to the strength and size of our military.  This mothball fleet would be the world’s second largest air force, even ahead of Russia.  Sadly, our military procurement process is so riddled by special interest, some airplanes go straight from production into mothball storage.