A photographic tour of the old airplane burial ground.
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AMARCBy lex, on March 11th, 2010
41 comments to AMARC |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
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WOW… thanks for those images. Those NAVY P-2V’s in Jungle green brought back memories of VP-26 in Vietnam (not that I was there… I knew a fellow aircrewman who was with them then). Dropping modified sonobuoys and other sensors along the Ho Chi Min trail.
Glad to know that some of the aircraft pictured were preserved and are on display.
As anudda old timer, the two S2Es were recently upgraded from D vqriants (ASW avionics enhancement). VS-34 and 39 were moved from RANDOLPH to ESSEX for one deployment. We did a NATOP and Med cruise in 68 with CVSG-56 embarked. The AW tailcode can be seen at the beginning of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3bijF2–os, followed by other interesting events of the day. Following the deployment, the CVSG-56 was decommed.
SJ: Didn’t happen to know an S2 guy by the name of Dick Ihlenburg (dec’d), did ya? He’s a relative and mentioned this event and had home movies of it IIR when I was a kid.
CW, sorry, Sir, I have no recollection of him.
It was quite a day.
There’s no pr0n like old pr0n…
Lots of different planes from lots of manufacturers during the same era. I can’t help but think our technology suffers from the consolidation of the industry. I understand why it has happened, but I certainly don’t like it.
George V.
I concur – Old prOn is best -
I want to go back – Back to great old American Planes, Cars and all that was good about the AMERRICA back then….
Start the research on how we can get into a time machine, set it for 1961 and send me back !!
Calling Mr. Peabody!
That was well worth being late to work for — thanks for passing along!
What a great romp… I even love the cars in a couple of photos. Great capture of our history.
I haven’t been there since the 80s. I drove across country after HS and stopped there for a day or two just to see the museum, take the tour, and drive along the fence. It was part of my rapture with The West after leaving Miami and eventually driving all the way to Seattle. I never served but had family that flew from Homestead AFB so I was always around it.
This website has not been updated in quite awhile but it has some AMARC pictures.
http://www.amarcexperience.com/Default.asp
Soon to be joined by legions of Hornets and Falcons and Eagles, and even Nighthawks. And in 10 yrs time you’ll see the Reapers and Predators joining the long gray line. Kind of depressing – you just know they want to in the air again.
What I would give to be able to buy some of these aircraft.
Circa 1965/1966 we used to escort the EF-10B (the DRUT) over North Vietnam. If I recall correctly, it cruised at about 265 KIAS. I think you probably can buy some of these airtcraft as they get sold off for scrap. They would have severed wing spars and no hardware/emgines, but might make a nioce lawn ornament.
Some proud old birds there. The govt. could go a way towards balancing the budget by selling off a bunch to collectors.
Amazing and just plain fun to look at. I remember many of these from the old Larson Air Force Base days in Moses Lake, WA where they were tested and turned over to the Air Force from Boeing. My brother and I had many plastic models of these planes and it’s fun to remember their designations from those happy days.
Gonna grab me a beer and spend a rainy night checking these out!
Gentlemen … What a beautiful and haunting display of America’s once mighty air dominance. The series has a look of science fiction about it. Heinlein would love it, and write about it. Tell me … could any of these planes be made flyable again, if necessary? Are they preserved, or simply parked, rusting gently down into the waiting earth? Do we have pilots out here in civilian-land who still could fly them? Can dishonest people steal parts from them or even the planes themselves, without detection? Dumb questions, I know, but please cut me some slack here.
Marianne
I can still recall seeing LTC D (my dad) get teary when he saw the chopped up B-52′s at DM. Looked like he was at a friend’s funeral.
Similarly, I’ve wondered how pilots feel about aircraft they’ve spent so much of their lives with – like the F-4 turned into drones. I saw a news release the other day that Boeing just was awarded a contract to begin the process of creating QF-16 drones now.
Marianne,
Your questions aren’t dumb. I’m thinking along the same lines. And most everyone gets slack around here, right?
My father-in-law was a boomer (boom operator, ran the boom that did air-to-air refueling.) He started out in KC-97s. I’ve seen the one they showed which is now parked at the airport in Colorado Springs as a restaurant several times. Keep thinking I need to stop in.
I know several aircraft that I flew in/worked on are there. The line of C-121C’s (You can tell by the square windows) brings back fond memories. I just missed getting to ferry one back there from Tachikawa when a Chief decided he needed the trip more. (No hard feelings, he rated it.) We travel by there frome time to time but I haven’t stopped because I would be too aggravated that I couldn’t get up close or in some of them.
I suppose this only shows that I’ve too much time on my hands tonight.. Foggy and rainy here…
If you go to http://www.bing.com – Click on Maps — Then enter Davis Monthan you’ll zoom to the airfield. You can then zoom in, look for “Birds Eye” view, which is aerial photography. You can walk your way over to the storage area and see what was in there. Not as good as the photos shown above, but interesting.
Dang Chris that is much cooler than Google maps! Danka!
What strikes me is that there only seems to be about 175 to 200 Tomcats on the lot. Yet 700+ were produced. Either the photos are older than 2006 or there are a lot of gate guards around the country. Or the atrition rate was really bad. Also, that Tomcat was a big SOB for a carrier bird.
On the other hand there seems to be no lack of F4 phantoms to convert to drones.
When you build over 5000 of em that will do the trick. Other thing is that amazing B52 which is still in service almost 70 years later. That was a helluva an airframe.
Since the Iranians also fly the F-14 and some people were making a lot of money selling them scavenged parts on the black market most of them were ordered simply destroyed. Amazed to see any airframes even in Monthan. Can guarantee you though there’s not a single them inside of them.
Actually, the contract to begin the conversion of F-16s into QF-16 drones is under evaluation as we speak.
Can’t wait for some drone pilot with a sense of humor to give an F-35 a dose of reality and get on his tail instead of just passively flying straight to get shot down.
More completely unfounded rumors I’ll shamelessly spread, anyone ever hear anything about a Pt. Mugu QF-4 driver that did something similar once? Sounds dangerous as f*&k to the piloted airplane, and something that that pilot would NOT be very appreciative of . . .
There is one P-3B Orion that I spent a considerable amount of flight time in. This was back in the day when squadrons “owned” their own aircraft. Nowadays they all belong to the wing.
Anyway, LD-07, BuNo 152750 still sits out there, all buttoned up, and looking for a home.
My pipe dream was always to be able to purchase her, and rebuild her as a personal flying RV. There are certainly enough ex P-3 pilots who are looking for flight time.
If nothing else, though, I’d give almost anything to have one of her seats, especially the one I used to use. It would make a great chair for the office, and be a good companion in the years to come.
Respects,
Bless your soul Lex . . .
Not sure how good an airplane it was, but the Voodoo always at least looked cool to me.
Plus, gotta love the B-47. Apparently it was near unflyable and killed its crew almost as efficiently as it would the enemy, but what a sight.
I loved the B-47 from the first time I saw it in “Strategic Air Command”, that great Jimmy Stewart movie. The only AF rival it had, in my mind, was the B-58 Hustler. What a GREAT design, and so far ahead of it’s time.
Oh yeah . . . that jet was soooooo sexy . . .
Still one of the best looking “things” of all time, even opening up the field beyond aircraft.
Worked in industry with a guy who had been an air force wrench turner on one. His claim was that what doomed it was corrosion problems with the honeycomb structure. Too much water intrusion would seep into the honeycomb and then turn it to oxidized powder. Maintenance costs were thus prohibitive. If materials technology had been slightly better (i.e. better sealant, or more corrosion resistant metals, or something along the lines of aerogel to fill the honeycomb and prevent water infestation, etc.) they could have flown for longer. Damn shame.
Opinions vary on the flyability of the B-47. Once in the air it was pretty responsive, but the trick was getting some 221,000 pounds of airplane into the air with six puny jets producing 7,200 pounds of thrust (wet) each, or 43,200 pounds total. Loss of an outboard engine on takeoff was really bad, with the pilot having only several seconds to react to the impending roll/yaw. Long before the advent of the zero/zero ejection seat.
For some reason reminds me of a couple things.
First was a rumor I heard once (i.e. I don’t know any better) that by the end of WWII the Luftwaffe ended up still losing more Bf109s from landing and takeoff accidents than due to enemy action. It was hell in the air on the enemy, but apparently tough at slow speed on the pilot.
Another is the “weird” egress arrangments on many bombers. From the B-52 (and F-104) having ejection seats that fired down, to the British Vulcan, which had ejection seats for the officer pilot and co-pilot, and no egress systems for the enlisted operators. Yikes.
Let’s add the Whale to that “weird” egress list. No ejection seats at all, and that quaint chute arrangement out the bottom hatch must have made crews real happy around the boat. BTW, I’ve never heard of anyone successfully getting out of a KC-135.
Knew a FAC 0-2 driver at DaNang (Maj) who had been a B-47 driver in SAC and was awarded a single-msn DFC when, as a co-pilot during mid-air refueling, turbulence and/or ham-fisted boomer wiped out front cockpit and AC with the boom and my guy managed to RTB and land from backseat sans canopy. Said it got mighty brisk back there…..
Wow! I found a photo of a very old friend. The photo of the BUNO 17150 LC-117D (DC-3) is in my log book as TC117D BUNO 17150 on my third flight in VT-29 in Corpus Christi. It’s listed as 4.5 hours of night time from Corpus to Corpus. No doubt a night cell nav training flight. I don’t have a log book entry for the “Whale” BUNO 138964 but was no doubt in the squadron when she was. I was the last man in VAH-123 before it was disbanded. I had the duty the final day and logged out the skipper (later VADM Jim Service) before I logged myself out.
Bittersweet, that. There is an emotional attachment to those planes, a bond that many will never understand.
Or would care to understand.
Before I joined the Navy I had heard of the Prowler but never gave it a second thought. Now I love that beast.
We had a bunch of F-100s at Misawa in ’64.
I did not dare click on the link. I may be weird, but I get all emotional about old airplanes. I remember my first AFROTC meeting at Ga. Tech, when we freshmen were all gathered in a huge auditorium. They showed us a movie intended to inspire us about all of the cool new airplanes, and how they were better than the old uncool airplanes.
The movie showed a whole bunch of P-47s being chopped to pieces. Every time the chopper came down, we all groaned, every one of us in that room. We all loved airplanes and flying, otherwise why would we have been there?
P.s. My favorite airplane ride was the one I had in a Ford Trimotor, out of Peachtree-DeKalb in the late seventies.