Old Planes Don't Die - They Get Regenerated - Pima Air Museum

Hi Blog!  On Tuesday, January 28, 2014, we drove over to the Pima Air & Space Museum located at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.  All week, we could hear the fighter jets and big cargo planes taking off down the road.  Several local residents recommended the museum, so we put it on our list of things to do while in Tucson.  It was definitely worth the trip.  As soon as we got there, Kathy couldn't wait to climb aboard one of the planes on display.

Pima Air & Space Museum is one of the largest air and space museums in the world, and the largest non-government funded aviation museum. They have more than 300 aircraft and spacecraft, including many of the most historically significant and technically advanced craft ever produced, both from the United States and throughout the world. Or course, no air museum would be complete without a fighter jet used by the Blue Angels.

This big boy from China Southern was returned to Boeing for a newer model.  Boeing donated it to the museum to be used as a classroom.  Interestingly, the tour guide said that the Chinese kept the inside of this airliner immaculate (we can testify to that - we've flown on China Air and China Southern and their plans are much cleaner and spiffier than American ones).

There are five hangers with various displays, but the bulk of the aircraft are located out in the desert. The hard packed Arizona clay and low humidity make it a perfect parking place for these big birds.  In order to see the entire tarmac and understand what we were looking at, we took a narrated tram ride.  One of the most impressive was this huge bomber:

The museum had the planes grouped according to type:  Attack, Bombers, Cargo, Commercial, Drones, Fighter, Fire Fighting, General Aviation, Helicopters, MiGs, NASA Aircraft, Recon/Patrol, Refueling, Seaplanes, Trainers, VIP Aircraft and Cruise Missles (disarmed, of course).  I found the designed of the Recon planes to be amazing with all their radar gear attached both above and below.

Behind the Recon plane, you can see the tail section of the NASA "vomit comet."  This is the plane the astronauts practiced floating around in zero G's.  Not sure I'd want to tour the inside of that jet. However, NASA's B-377SG "Super Guppy" would be fun to tour.  This monster was designed to transport segments of rockets, and much of the Saturn rocket that powered the Apollo Program was transported in the Super Guppy.

After the museum tram tour, we had a quick lunch and went to board a tour bus that was to take us over to visit the 309th AMARG - Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group and its amazing boneyard and storage fields.  AMARG takes care of more than 4,400 aircraft, which makes it the largest aircraft storage and preservation facility in the world. Planes of similar make and model are parked together.

The engines are removed an stored in air tight containers.  All of the openings are sealed and protected with a high tech film.

These planes are just waiting for the day when they will be brought back to life with new and modern equipment.  Recycling planes saves millions of taxpayer dollars over the cost of constructing new planes from scratch.

They have all types of planes - big ones, small ones, jet ones and prop ones.

Those that can no longer fly, give up their parts so that others can continue their service.  Nothing goes to waste.

After finishing our tour of the "Boneyard."  We went back to take a walk through the various hangers. You've got to love a plane called the "Bumble Bee." It was built for the sole purpose of being the world's smallest piloted plane.

The last hanger we toured was a private museum - 390th Memorial Museum.  Dedicated to the men (and women) who flew the B-17G "Flying Fortress" during World War II.

We definitely would recommend this museum to anyone visiting the Tucson area.