Jennifer Barnard, now in her third year as group commander. In this May 21, , photo, U. Marines play spades during a break at the th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group boneyard in Tucson, Ariz.
And as the only facility of its kind in the nation, the boneyard is often the only place to find the parts needed for certain types of older aircraft. Barnard says simple, high-priority orders can be filled the same day, but larger, hard-to-reach parts can take weeks or months to harvest and deliver. One of the Cs that services the science stations in Antarctica sports a tail section that once soaked up the sun in Tucson. Roughly 95 percent of aircraft arrive at the boneyard under their own power.
They land and taxi through a gate at the southeastern end of the runway to be prepped for slumber. Pace says the task takes longer for large airplanes with multiple engines like the massive C-5 Galaxy transport. It works a little like a blood transfusion. All of the aviation fuel is pumped out and replaced with a special oil, similar to the stuff used in sewing machines, that coats the tanks and fuel systems to protect them from corrosion.
The only way to do that is by firing up the engines. On this recent Thursday, the crew is working on the Navy P-3, which arrived at AMARG the week before and was towed to the flush farm earlier in the morning. Pace stands outside the aircraft, watching the engines for the telltale sign that the exchange is complete. As soon as he sees puffs of white smoke, like at the Vatican, he motions to the men in the cockpit to cut the power.
To coat all the necessary engine parts in an F or an F, the fighter jets have to be lashed to the ground and run with their afterburners on, creating a rumbling sound that echoes across Tucson. The next stop is the wash rack, where men in protective rain gear give a Coast Guard C transport plane a nose-to-tail scrubbing before it flies off to be outfitted to fight wildfires.
The aircraft has already been painted with the U. Forest Service name and logo. Wash rack supervisor Mike Sherry says that on average his crew cleans about four airplanes and 50 refurbished parts each week. The men bake all summer in their rubber suits, then spend the cold winter outside soaking wet. It's also an important one. B-1 bombers began arriving at Davis-Monthan a few weeks ago to head for long term storage at AMARG, the th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group , the main Air Force location to store planes and use them for parts to keep other planes flying.
The first planes coming in were B bombers-- critical for winning World War 2, but obsolete as the jet age zoomed forward. From roughly nine hundred planes stored the first year, AMARG has grown to 32 hundred planes with plenty of room for more.
McCauley von Hoffman. People think of it as the boneyard which is storage. It's definitely one of the mission sets, but like I mentioned, being able to keep existing aircraft that are out in the field, at the highest capability and at the highest structural soundness and airworthiness is what they do here as well. In the end, Peacemakers were scrapped and dismantled, but four were remaining models were saved for preservation in air museums.
At the time, Litchfield Park in Phoenix, Arizona also held an aircraft storage facility as the primary boneyard for the majority of Navy aircraft. The majority of the aircraft was all transported by truck because it was less expensive than attempting to prepare the planes to fly to Tucson after storage, just to preserve them once again. By , the last Air Force B Jet Bomber was retired and scrapped at Davis-Monthan, with the exception of 30 Stratojets that were saved for preservation in air museums.
In , the final F-4 Phantom was refurbished and performed its last flight in Tucson. Photo Credit: Gloria Knott. The boneyard has been at work with the reactivation of the dormant fleet of F-4 Phantom IIs, F Fighting Falcons, And F Hornets for use within the military again as autonomous platforms and as aerial targets drones.
Currently, the Boneyard acts as an important part of the Tucson economy as it employs personnel of primarily the civilian sector and an additional private contractors.
More importantly, the Boneyard contributes to the tourism of the local Tucson area. This guided motor coach tour, occurring Monday through Friday, generally lasts about an hour and a half and provides individuals with the history of the site and aircraft.
However, no one is allowed off of the bus during the tour. Baggage checks and valid identification are required before getting on the bus, and security is enforced heavily due to the facility being a part of Davis-Monthan Airforce Base.
The movie was released in in place of the Smithsonian. Airplane Boneyards. CGM Findings. Movie Chronicles. The Living Moon.
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