Airplanes, Junkyards and Music
It was a beautiful day to spend at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson. The museum is located across the street from Davis-Monthan Air Base which houses the worlds largest "junkyard" of airplanes. AMARC is the official designation--Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Corp. What a sight!
We spent nearly six hours walking the grounds (65 acres) of the museum, touring the various hangar exhibits and taking a bus tour of the airplane storage facility. Jim can usually identify any plane we spot but there were some at this museum that had him stumped.
The biggest attraction for Jim was the SR-71 Blackbird.
The "Pregnant Super Guppy" caught my eye. This is used by NASA to transport Saturn V rocket parts. It's hugely fat :)
A special highlight was visiting the 390th Memorial Museum. The volunteers seemed to all be pilots who had flown the B-17 out of England on missions to Germany. We spoke with Richard who recalled that 62 years ago yesterday he was on a bombing run. He flew 28 missions (3 over the max) in four months during 1943/44 and was one of the lucky ones to come home. He reminded me of Dick Winter in Band of Brothers, piercing blue eyes and a quiet manner. We shook his hand to thank him and I felt a bit emotional to connect with a guy who had done so much to serve our country.
Here's the B-17 we stood by as we chatted.
We took the tour of the airbase plane depot where thousands of planes worth billions of dollars are in various states of storage. Planes are kept for parts, to give/sell to other countries and to dispose of properly. Row after row of planes, wing assemblies, pontoons, etc. plus acres of pieces and parts of planes that look like an auto junkyard. Quite a sight...your tax dollars at work. Actually, this base contributes money back to the treasury when planes are returned to service or sold. Here's a view of F-4 Phantoms with the Catalina Mountains in the background.
After this long day of walking we opted for a movie which of course had to include planes. We picked Firefox, an old Clint Eastwood film, so we could see if the plane used was an SR-71. It wasn't. The movie segued to a DJ night of music with Jim selecting one after another of our old 30's and 40's songs. I love closing my eyes, listening, singing along and wondering what he'll play next. About 1 AM we called it a day (or night).