This article is mostly photos. The next two have much more text.

https://tucson.com/news/local/...d606c256065e.html#18

Text and photos:

https://tucson.com/news/local/...1e-b23ae846c1e1.html

https://tucson.com/news/state-...1e-d0091d10d60e.html

I got my first tour with a PA guy in late 1975, B-58s were still in storage and the D-21s (which at the time I did not know were D-21s) had just arrived. And U-2s were in the sky. I also got several tours with 174TFW during Snowbird deployments in the 1980s, we had our own bus and stopped whenever we felt like it!

My most recent tour was Dec 2018, a far less exciting stay on the bus ride from the Pima Air Museum.

https://pimaair.org/tickets-and-tours/

If you ever are in the area, take the tour. Well worth it.

Tours are arranged through Pima Air and Space Museum and must be reserved in advance, as a security clearance check is done.

From the Pima Air and Space Museum website:

quote:

Advanced reservations are now required for this tour. All guests interested in taking this tour must have made a reservation and received a security clearance in advance. The security clearance will be given by Davis-Monthan Air Force Base from information collected at the time of reservation. Reservations must be made 16 business days in advance of the desired tour date, and can be made up to 60 days in advance. Please submit a Reservation Request here

Link

That place is a national treasure. I was stationed at D-M for 4 years, and I poked around the outside of the fences of the boneyard every chance I got. There was just so much cool stuff there. They had the 'normal' stuff, such as rows and rows of early model F-15s, F-16s, etc, and then they had 'unusual' stuff. For example, on one side of the boneyard were oddities such as a couple Soviet-built MiGs, some older trainers (T-33s, maybe; I can't recall exactly what), and even the gondola from a WWII-era airship. I assume these were in limbo status waiting eventual transfer to a museum somewhere (why else keep a 70-yr old airship gondola?). I searched for this area on Google, but can't find it. Perhaps they relocated all these aircraft. It was 11 years since I've been there. . . There were also a bunch of D-21 drones, that used to be launched from (among other things) SR-71s.

The coolest visit I ever had of the boneyard (and I took the bus tour) was when I was on-board a B-25 bomber for a ceremonial fly-over, and we orbited the boneyard at 1000 feet for about 15-20 minutes. I had my head at the side window taking all the photos I could. It was amazing.

The bus tour is great, but it's an air conditioned bus (it was over 100F, after all), and they went on a prescribed route. I would have loved to take a golf cart or gator and just toured the place at random for a couple hours, but of course, that's not a realistic expectation. . .

I still love checking it out on Google Earth. There is a LOT of cool stuff there. There is, essentially, a small part that is an outdoor museum. They have a line with pretty much one of every military aircraft with a placard describing the aircraft. The bus drives by here and tourists can look at them. Of course, they don't stop to let us out to look closer. If you Google Earth it, you can see this part on Coolidge Street on the NE side of the boneyard.

I spent a week there a while back pulling a couple aircraft out, I got to roam around some and found a few aircraft that I had deployed with, one of them was one we had onboard the USS Princeton during Desert Shield/Storm and the Mine hits. It was kind of like seeing an old friend again, brought back lots of old memories.

Last time I was out there they had rows and rows of recently retired OH-58D Kiowas there.

Would be great to find some of the old F-14s but if I recall correctly, they shredded most of them to prevent stuff from finding it's way to Iran.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Last time I was out there they had rows and rows of recently retired OH-58D Kiowas there.

Would be great to find some of the old F-14s but if I recall correctly, they shredded most of them to prevent stuff from finding it's way to Iran.

Yeah they did, the only Tomcat I remember seeing was at the office building right after you go though the main Gate

quote:

Originally posted by navyshooter:

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Last time I was out there they had rows and rows of recently retired OH-58D Kiowas there.

Would be great to find some of the old F-14s but if I recall correctly, they shredded most of them to prevent stuff from finding it's way to Iran.

Yeah they did, the only Tomcat I remember seeing was at the office building right after you go though the main Gate

Looking at Google Earth all I could find in the main working yard was two Turkey fuselages in the southern area, no wings and likely the last 2 to be torn down.

Pity, such a wonderful aircraft. I wish I had some souvenirs from one before it was torn apart but I know all the guys who took them to D-M near the end were warned under pain of death to take nothing.

But my PCL, NATOPS, and logbook is enough.

Reminds me of the boneyard scene in The Best Years of our Lives.

quote:

Originally posted by Sigfest:
Reminds me of the boneyard scene in The Best Years of our Lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpGNKO6wz10

That was filmed at Ontario, CA. There's a still from the movie and 20 pages about Ontario in this fine, heavily illustrated book entitled "Surplus WWII US Aircraft."

https://www.amazon.com/Surplus...5295&s=books&sr=1-18

Very Cool!
Tanks for posting!