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Davis Monthan AFB Pictorial Spread
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Davis Monthan – The Ultimate Desert Boneyard
It is difficult to describe the experience of visiting the massive Aerospace Maintenance & Regeneration Centre at Davis Monthan air force base in Tucson, Arizona.
DM is home to over 3000 aircraft, ranging from small helicopters through to hundreds of long surplus eight engined B-52s. This writer first had the pleasure of visiting DM back in 1980 and to this day still holds the visit as one of the highlights of a long career in aviation.
At that time the inventory at DM was somewhat different to that of today. I remember rows of KC-97 tankers, C-121 and EC-121 Constellations, C-131 Samaritans and hundreds of other prop driven aircraft including Douglas Skyraiders and T-28 Trojans, nowadays prized as warbird types. There were also many early build Hercules, Phantoms and various century series fighters, most of which have since been converted into drones for use as ‘live’ targets against pilots not even born when they originally left the factory.
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Tucson of course is more than just a visit to DM. There are a number of refurbishment and scrapping facilities situated adjacent to the civil airport and the air force base whilst within striking distance are the now heavily subscribed airliner airparks at Marana in addition to the famous Pima County Air Museum. A must see in itself.
Is DM viable? Yes, as an example, in 1988, a typical year, MASDC took in 316 aircraft whilst 119 were withdrawn (about half returning to service). A total of 91,669 separate spare parts items were reclaimed during that year for a return of $US250m against an operating budget of just $US19m.
fu case you are interested invisiting DM, then there is a tour (by reservation) each Monday and Wednesday though readers should note that this tour is quite short. Alternatively a four hour photographers tour departs on the second Saturday of each month. For more information contact the base PR office direct on 602-748 3358.
Our 1993 Oshkosh/USA (advertised elsewhere in this issue) tour will again be visiting Tucson and whilst a specific visit to DM is not on our itinerary (due to timing problems with the USAF) you can still see much of the assembled community of aircraft from a simple drive around the perimeter fence.
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