Towards the end of the U.S. Armed Forces’ move from the piston age into the jet age, MASDC, and later AMARC, became chock full of surplus and obsolescent aircraft in a hurry. When I began visiting the Boneyard in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were still several Convair C-131 and T-29 aircraft still in use as transports and squadron “hacks”; the U.S. Navy still had C-118s in use too.  C-47s had been phased out a handful of years prior to this time.  Many examples of these types were parked though, and ultimately would be sold to scrappers, but a fair amount made it into civilian hands too.  Even early C-130 aircraft, some with the “Roman nose” (without a radome) could be found parked in the desert. There once was a saying that when the last F-15 Eagle was phased out and parked in the Boneyard, a T-33 would be sent out to bring the pilot back home to his base.  Of course this didn’t happen, but the last operational T-birds were being parked around this time… however the type was supplied to many friendly air forces and some became civilianized too.  There were many T-33s stored, and not scrapped.  T-28 and T-34 piston versions were replaced by T-37 and T-34C trainers, and a number of these became civilian warbirds at the end of their military lives.  Even T-2 and T-38 advanced jet trainers were stored, either for later use or to be scrapped when their service life was over.

As a storage facility, MASDC/AMARC held some rare aircraft for their owners… the National Air and Space Museum’s Boeing Dash 80 prototype spent time in Tucson, as did one of NASA’s turbine-powered Guppies and WB-57 Canberras.  Prototype YC-14A and YC-15 jets were parked together for a while, and a Fairchild T-46A, one of three used for flight tests before the program was cancelled, spent time in the sun too.

Here is a slide show with photos of some classic warbirds taken during five different visits to MASDC and AMARC… enjoy!