Worlds Largest Aircraft Graveyard: Tucson Arizona (USA)

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The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group located at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona is the biggest aircraft graveyard in the world.

“The Boneyard” as it is often called was created in 1946 to store some surplus DoD and navy planes but eventually grew to become the storage area for all out-of-service U.S. government aircraft.

It contains over 4000 aircraft including bombers, fighters like the F15 Eagle and F14 Tomcat, huge military transport planes like the C5a Galaxy, helicopters, jump jets as well as unique prototypes which never made it into service.

Interesting Facts about the Boneyard

Some aircraft are stored for possible reuse, metal reclamation and others to be stripped for spare parts eg: forAustralia’s F-111 strike aircraft
The climate at Tucson is friendly to aircraft with hard alkaline soil for them to move around on, low humidity and low rainfall. In fact the facility is so good at what it does that for every $1 the US government spends operating the facility, it saves or produces $11
Under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction talks over 300 B-52 bombers had their wings cut from the fuselage and laid out in the Boneyard as evidence for Soviet satellites passing overhead
The Boneyard doesn’t just store aircraft. It also stores inactive Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads

Visit the Boneyard

Public tours of the Boneyard are arranged by the adjacent Pima Air & Space Museum. At the time of writing this adult tickets were a mere $US 6.

Advance reservations are strongly recommended to guarantee seating. To make an AMARG tour reservation call PIMA and ask for the reservation desk.

You will need to check in at the Pima Air & Space Museum Store no later than 30 minutes prior to tour departure time or your reservation may be subject to cancellation. The tour bus boards at the Museum entrance.

Tours are given Monday through Friday (excluding US federal holidays) and last approximately one hour. Departure times are seasonal. Please call for current times.

More Information

Click on the image to view the planes really close up using Microsoft Maps

10 Comments about “Worlds Largest Aircraft Graveyard: Tucson Arizona (USA)”

Comment by rebecca on March 11th, 2008:

Hi, interesting find.
Are you saying that the US stores aircraft in this “boneyard” then Australia buys some of these fighters for our national defence? I know we don’t have a huge defence budget, but buying planes from an American aircraft graveyard???

EDITOR: Australia already has the F-111 strike aircraft - we get the spare parts from the boneyard at really cheap prices - which is great because when was the last time you heard about cheap Defence force equipment
Comment by Mark McGrouther on March 11th, 2008:

Thank you Neerav,

I had seen a program on the boneyard years ago. What an incredible place. Nice to know that our F-111s can be kept in the air by using Boneyard ‘offcuts’.

Cheers,
Mark
Comment by Vinay (1 comments.) on March 14th, 2008:

Hi Neerav,

Great Find.

It is an amazing sight to see for an aircraft enthusiast like me. Do they allow camping overnight? I don’t think I would be able to digest the entire trip in one day

Keep up the good work

EDITOR: No you can’t camp there, only do the bus tour - good idea though
Comment by tigrs84 on March 16th, 2008:

That is way cool. I was in Tucson 4 months ago and I wish I knew about this then. I would have like to have gone on a tour for sure.
Comment by Matt (1 comments.) on March 18th, 2008:

Hah that’s a fun picture. Looks like a kid was playing in the dirt with some toy planes.
Comment by becky (3 comments.) on March 18th, 2008:

wow, that overhead photo is crazy. Never have I seen so many planes in one location… They almost look like they’re laid out in a certain way as “art”
Comment by Kate B (2 comments.) on March 19th, 2008:

If you’re looking for a much closer view have a look at Microsoft Maps aerial view of the boneyard:

I’ve been there. It’s just crazy. The planes go on forever.

EDITOR: Thanks a lot Kate. That Microsoft Maps link is much more detailed than Google Maps

Shame it doesn’t allow embedding in other sites, instead I’ve added a screenshot to the article which people can click to see the Microsoft Maps aerial view
Comment by lee on March 29th, 2008:

amazing! this place looks ace!
Comment by Day One Recap - SMX Sydney SEO SEM Conference 2008 < Rambling Thoughts Blog - Neerav Bhatt on April 10th, 2008:

[…] to Yahoo or Live maps. However in the USA the competition is fiercer eg: for my article about the Worlds Largest Aircraft Graveyard in Tucson Arizona I used Microsoft Maps because their maps zoomed in the […]
Comment by Beth (2 comments.) on April 12th, 2008:

This would be a neat place to visit! 4000 aircraft is a lot to see. Can you go inside any of the planes?

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