Arizona. Museum of the Air Force’s Desert Boneyard
While I was still in high school, my father and I flew to Tucson to tour the University of Arizona. Driving to our hotel, we followed a long fence that separated us from rows of identical military aircraft, arranged wingtip to wingtip. Making a turn, we could see more planes including swept-wing bombers, fighters, and transports, many with white covers over their Plexiglas canopies. Later, we learned that the aircraft were among more than 4,000 stored at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Checking in at our hotel that evening, a desk clerk mentioned that we could see a sample of the base’s aircraft up close at the nearby Pima Air Museum. Davis-Monthan Airfield was established in 1925, eight kilometers southeast of downtown Tucson and named in honor of WWI pilots and Tucson natives Samuel H. Davis and Oscar Monthan. During WWII, the base was used for training crews to fly heavy bombers including Douglas B-18 Bolos, Consolidated B-24 Liberators, and Boeing B-29 Superfortresses. For a brief period (1945-46) it housed Japanese prisoners of war. Today, the base is the world’s largest storage/ preservation site for surplus and mothballed aircraft since dry air and alkali soil offer ideal conditions for preserving aluminum airframes. Stored at Davis-Monthan are 131 Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers, 346 General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons, 94 Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses, and 314 Lockheed C-130 Hercules among other aircraft. For several years the Air Force permitted bus tours of the base. However, as a result of security concerns, public tours have been discontinued.
In 1966, Air Force officials began lining up examples of mothballed aircraft along fence lines for curious visitors. Pima began as an outdoor display. Indeed, when my dad and I visited in 1979, there were just a handful of buildings. Working with the Tucson Chapter of the Air Force Association, base commander Colonel J.R. Perkin developed the concept for a museum and soon after raised $800 to purchase 320 acres of land. The first aircraft displayed was a B-24 bomber acquired in 1969 from the Indian Air Force. The museum opened in 1976 with 48 aircraft including a Martin PBM Mariner, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and an English Electric Lightening. Today, the collection has expanded to more than 400 aircraft, including a rare Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird and a Douglas VC-118A used as Air Force One by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. There are also smaller planes such as a Beechcraft UC-45J Expeditor, a Boeing PT-17 Kadet, and a Grumman A-6E Intruder. One of the museum’s most recent acquisitions is a McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier that flew with U.S. Marine air attack squadrons. The Harrier is a veteran of the Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom campaigns.
In 2022, a friend and I returned to Pima and found that most aircraft are still displayed outdoors. Among the oddest looking is the museum’s Aero Spacelines 377G “Super Guppy.” Built to transport large volume cargos such as segments of NASA’s Apollo rocket engines, the aircraft uses the basic layout of a Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter but with a bulbus upper fuselage. Interior access is provided by a massive hinge that enables the forward portion of the fuselage to open like a door. Capable of carrying a remarkable 18,597 kilograms, the Super Guppy is powered by four 7,000 horsepower Pratt and Whitney engines.
Another relict is a Vickers Model 744, the world’s first propeller-driven airliner. First produced in 1948, the four-engine Model 744 went in service with British European Airways in 1952, carrying 63 passengers and a crew of four. Among the most futuristic aircraft stored outside is a Convair B-58A Hustler which was used by the U.S. Air Force beginning in 1960. Powered by four turbojet engines, the Hustler was the first supersonic bomber to reach Mach 2 (2,469 km/hour). The museum’s Hustler served in the 305th Bombardment Wing at Grissom Air Force Base in Indiana during the late 1960s.
Walking down a row of aircraft, we passed a Boeing B-47E Stratojet, the world’s first all-jet bomber. With six turbojets and swept-back wings, the B-47 was designed to drop nuclear bombs on targets within the Soviet Union. Departing from the side-by-side cockpit arrangement of most other large aircraft, the B-47’s pilot and co-pilot sat in tandem under a fighter-style bubble canopy. Since the aircraft could be challenging to slow down following a landing, it was equipped with a drag chute. Boeing manufactured more than 2,000 B-47s. Among smaller aircraft displayed outdoors was a Douglas A4 Skyhawk. The A-4 was a lightweight, single-seat jet built for U.S. Navy carrier operations. First used in 1954 the delta-wing A-4 was powered by a single Pratt and Whitney J52 engine. A-4s saw action in Vietnam and with the Israeli Air Force during the War of Attrition (1967-70) and the Yom Kipper War (1973). They were also used by Argentina to bomb British warships during the 1982 Falklands War.
Before leaving, my companion and I walked through the museum’s hangars. Inside Hangar 1 is a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt, a Gruman F-14 Tomcat, and several smaller aircraft including a Curtis O-52 Owl observation plane and a Bell OH-58 Kiowa helicopter. Hangar 2 houses the museum’s administrative offices, a library, and its archives. There is also a gallery dedicated to Arizona’s Aviation Hall of Fame. Inside Hangar 3 we found a Fiesler F1 156C Storch hanging from the ceiling. The Storch was built for the German Luftwaffe as a liaison (observation) aircraft. It had excellent short field performance and an ability to operate from unimproved landing strips. The museum’s Storch was built in 1947 by the Moraine-Saulnier Company and used by the French in Vietnam. It is painted in camouflage and features insignia used by the Italian Regia Aeronautica (Air Force) in North Africa. With a two-person crew, the Storch had a maximum speed of 175 kilometers per hour. Two other museums are located adjacent to the Pima Air Museum, the 390th Memorial Museum which houses a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and the Dorthy H. Finley Space Gallery.
