March 12, 2016
Today's day trip from Kartchner Caverns State Park took us into the greater Tucson area. We were keen to see the Air and Space Museum and the nearby US Air Force base's Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG).
We toured the vast Air and Space Museum for several hours, via a tram for the large outdoor display area, and walked through the five indoor hangar and display buildings. I attended a brief lecture about World War II Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) delivered by a young woman student pilot and toured the display about "women in the air", which described the many obstacles faced by women in this field and the many advances and accomplishments. There was also a display of the various uniforms worn by women in the air, both pilots and flight attendants. Particularly colourful were the 60s flight attendant uniforms...
The tram guide was incredibly knowledgeable about aircraft, describing without missing a beat, over 100 planes on our one-hour tour. Phew!
The aircraft in this privately run museum range from the tiny...
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| World Record holder Bumblebee, smallest prop plane at 6' long! |
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| World's smallest jet aircraft |
to some enormous cargo planes. The collection includes dozens of military aircraft as well as commercial airliners, helicopters, a replica of the Wright's Brothers plane and modern Mach 4 planes. Impressive! Here is s small sample I selected for their telling graphics:
and an acrobatics plane from the US Navy's Blue Angel team:
We would very much have liked to tour the AMARG described above, but the base was closed for touring (bad news) because of an Air Show (good news!). We craned our necks and caught the US Air Force's Thunderbirds Acrobatic team's performance. Here they are flying in tight formation of four or five aircraft. Wow!
As we left the area and made our way to our next stop, our GPS took us along the road beside the AMARG. Miles of aircraft of all sizes and shapes parked in a huge area, awaiting their next service call. This, followed by acres of spare parts, the air version of an enormous auto wreckers yard!
It's been so many years since we visited this museum that I can't recall the year, but there was no tram tour then. One of the aircraft on display was one of the Air Force One designated planes that JFK used; surprisingly small inside considering the planes being used now. It was a fun day at the museum. We also drove around the airplane graveyard at Davis Monthan ... yup, no tour there either. Those precision flyers are something else. We saw a couple of shows when we were stationed at Hill AFB in Utah, but the one that was most exciting was the one we watched from the beach in Pensacola ... those guys sure liked to come out of nowhere and make us jump, and then wiggle their wings in salute.
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