Years ago I made frequent visits to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. I noticed
then that the folks at the famous military aircraft "boneyard" there had
pulled a couple of dozen aircraft from their inventory and put them on
public display. But I never had time to go look.
While I was down in Tucson recently Jim Slade suggested I go back and see
what has happened to that display. The short answer is that it has evolved
into today's Pima Air and Space Museum, which features more than 200
aircraft spread across 75 acres of display area. Wow!
It's probably the biggest and best collection of military aircraft west
of Dayton.
I arrived on a typically hot Tucson day. Meaning I should have brought
along a hat and a gallon of sunscreen. A quick stroll around the open-air
portions of the museum can take several hours, although optional tram tours are offered for those adverse to that much walking.
The shadiest spot I could find out in the middle of the plane yard was under
the huge wing of a Douglas C-133 Cargomaster, one of the few remaining
examples of the mammoth
turboprop plane built for the Air Force prior to the advent of the C-5 Galaxy. This big bird could airlift 59 tons of cargo. And I remember it vibrated so badly that in flight you could stand between the wing roots in the cargo area and pass a piece of paper back and forth beneath your feet. Buzzzzzzzz.
You notice lots of interesting things as you wander around the museum. Some are small things. The slab side of one B-52 bomber
is marked with small silhouettes of rockets, instead of the usual bomb shapes used to indicate numbers of combat missions flown. Closer examination reveals that these rockets are really X-15s. This was the drop plane used to launch the X-15 rocket planes into the skies over Edwards.
The museum sits barely south of Davis Monthan AFB, and conveniently close to the aircraft boneyard that is currently named the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center, or AMARC. Museum curators keep a close eye on planes arriving at AMARC so they can lay claim to any special aircraft that might turn up there.
One example is the old C-118 they spotted at the boneyard some years back. To a casual observer it was just one more ancient DC-6 passenger plane
that had seen long years of service in the Air Force and National Guard and was due to be chopped up. Pima curators, however, did some research and discovered this plane had once been Air Force One!
Yup, It was the last piston-powered Air Force One in the USAF inventory and
was kept on in a backup role after the VC-137 (B-707) was bought for
President Kennedy. It carried JFK to Jackson Hole (where the runway at that
time couldn't accommodate his jet) just a week before he took the other
plane to Dallas.
It was also a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson. Volunteer docents today walk museum visitors though the restored plane and tell colorful stories about LBJ's travels in it. Pima is strictly non-profit, so volunteers play an important role here.
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