Pima Air and Space Museum

Wednesday, November 27
The Pima Air and Space Museum is located on the south end of Tucson near the Davis Monthan Air Base.

The museum has over 300 airplanes on its 80 acre site. They offer tours of the outside plane exhibits as well as a tour of the 'boneyard' of stored airplanes over at the airbase. As a Canadian, in order to tour the airbase you need to submit your request two weeks ahead of time to give them sufficient time to approve your request. I didn't plan that far ahead so I missed out on the boneyard tour.

Rain was threatening so I figured I should have a look at the outside displays first. I walked the whole 80 acres! You will notice that many of the aircraft on display have had some 'weather proofing' done such as window coverings and engine wrapping. This is done to preserve the aircraft from the harsh desert environment.

Nice collection of vintage military planes

A Russian Mig-29 

Lots of helicopters

This is a Sikorsky Sky Crane, with it's rotors folded of course. This is a huge helicopter. You may have seen them carrying huge water tanks fighting forest fires in California.

It has a couple of HUGE engines.

.....and a winch that looks like it could lift a building.

Here's another huge helicopter. It's a Sikorsky Pav Low

 

This is kind of ugly. It is an airborne radar airplane called a Gannet.

Another unique aircraft with counter-rotating props. This is another radar plane called the Avro Shakleton.

They had a number of air tankers. This was a EC-135 Stratotanker. In a later life it was converted into a 'vomit comet' for astronaut training. By climbing at a high angle, then descending rapidly the occupants were weightless for a period of time.

The nozzle used to refuel the other plane

A Boeing KB-50 Superfortress tanker. Used from 1947 - 68.

You won't see this everywhere. It's an old Hercules Transport.....with skis.

Not many of these around. It's called a Super Guppy. The whole front end opens on hinges for access to the huge cargo bay.

They had some VIP aircraft. This one was used to fly Eisenhower.

This was an Air Force One used by President Kennedy and President Johnson.

Grumman Albatross sea rescue.

A C-130 Hercules that first flew in 1950.

Lockheed C-141 Starlifter

Harrier jet

Lots of Harriers. Different ages and dressed in different Airforce colors.

F-15 Eagle

Surveillance and spotter plane. The Bronco. 

Sikorsky S-43 flying boat.

Boeing 747-100 test platform.

One of only two built. Designed as a heavy lift transport. Called the Boeing YC-14.

A DC-10 converted to an eye hospital. It flew from 1970 to 2016.

The flying boxcar. It had a jet assist engine mounted on the top for added take-off capability.

The whole back doors opened for access to the cargo bay.

Pima Museum has many aircraft that are quite rare and some are only found here. It makes for an interesting tour. Unfortunately the outside displays have limited information about each aircraft. It would be interesting to learn a bit more about them.

After the outside tour I started to look at the inside exhibits. There are four main buildings. One was closed for maintenance. The displays inside have much more information about the aircraft.

Beautiful B-17. They had a whole hangar devoted to the B-17 and the 309th Air Group that flew them. In total over 12,000 B-17's were built.

C-46 Commando

P-51D Mustang

F-4U Corsair

North Korean Mig

B-29 Superfortress

28 cylinder radial engine.

A Japanese Kamikase plane The landing gear was designed to fall off after take-off. The plane was never designed to land!

PBY - Catalina flying boat.

Spitfire Mark XIV

A couple of drones used to test air to air missiles. Some made it back to the ground, only if the test failed!

B-24 Liberator bomber.

Smallest bi-plane in the world. Yes, it flew.

Huey

F-14 Tomcat

The big black plane is the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane.

The A-10 Thunderbolt (or Warthog as it is affectionately known)

The deadly 30mm cannon.

This thing can fire up to 4200 rounds per minute.

30 mm shells.

This case represents one second of firing!

The Gazelle helicopter.

A unique F107 that was built to testing but never went to contract.

To me the most interesting aircraft here is the A-10 Thunderbolt, or Warthog. This is an older aircraft now but still hasn't been replaced by anything better. In fact the Davis Monthan airbase next door still use this aircraft and they were running circuits around the base as I walked the museum.

About mid-afternoon I had seen enough......all of it actually, so time to head back to the campground. Time to dump our grey tanks. So fun!

Thursday is American Thanksgiving and I think we'll stick close to the campground.

......and that was Our View From Here!