4300 Planes!

We headed out early this morning for the Pima Air Museum, the first stop was for gas which is fairly cheap in Arizona.

We are headed South on Hwy. 10, the speed limit is 75, so everyone is driving about 80.  I saw Pecan orchards, cotton fields and lots of cactus on the way.

When we got to the museum, we signed up for a bus tour of the USAF bone yard across the road at Davis Monthan AFB.  We had half an hour to kill before the tour, so we toured the first building really quick.  Of course I found one of my favorite airplanes the Thunderbirds F-4E Phantom in it.

The bus tour of the bone yard was great, the narrator was a retired USAF pilot who has flown planes from the F-100 to the F-22 Raptor.

 During the tour, the base commander came on the bus and she told us about the 4000 planes they have stored on 2600 acres worth 35 billion dollars.

There is just about every kind of airplane or helicopter you can imagine there.  After we got back to Pima, we had lunch and then continued our tour of the 300 planes there.

This is Barry with the Bumble Bee which was the world's smallest biplane at one time.

There are four football field sized hangers that house 150 aircraft, plus an outside display of another 150 aircraft.  This view is just part of the outside display as seen from the second floor of the B-17 hanger.

This is another view from the B-17 hanger.  Out there a ways is where my camera battery died after about 450 pictures.  Then I had to fall back on the cell phone's camera.

As we were walking around outside we could see A-10s and C-130s practicing at Davis Monthan AFB.

After we got home, Barry had to run to the Phoenix airport to pick up some friends.  Mona showed me around the yard and pointed out all the different types of cactus and plants.  They have done a great job and it was really interesting.