INTRODUCTION

After the end of World War Two, the United States Air Force established a vast storage site at Davis-Monthan AFB on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, to accommodate the growing number of surplus airframes returned from combat theatres around the world, pending a decision on their future. Over the years, the site was managed by various units and commands until 1965, when it was given its own identity as the MASDC (Military Aircraft Storage and Disposition Center) and is now named the 309th AMARG (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Command).

A consequence of the storage centre’s establishment was the creation of numerous metal recovery businesses around its edges, where thousands of airframes were recycled into aluminium ingots for re-use in industry. This expanded into aircraft parts recovery and airframe restoration, which continues to this day.

I first visited the area in October 1982 and it had a profound effect on me. I have returned many times since, such is my fascination with the subject. I hope this book can do it justice.

This book is intended as a pictorial overview of the Davis-Monthan ‘scrapyards’, as they became commonly known, during the period of the 1980s. I have illustrated the various ‘scrapyard’ locations in the order in which I first visited; the same route others might have taken when driving around the base perimeter for the first time.

Each yard is described with pictures from October 1982 to establish a baseline of reference and I have included as many pictures as possible from the time, though not everything from each yard is shown –Kodachrome film was much too expensive for a teenager in those days!

Views from later visits during the 1980s are also shown, in order to give a flavour of what had changed in the passing of time and help illustrate the ‘fluidity’ of the yards’ contents, which provided a constantly changing scene around the MASDC perimeter. The timeframe for this book is specifically the 1980s, with illustrations and descriptions pertaining to that time period only. Many airframes shown here remained well into the 1990s and beyond, joined by many more in future years, all with further stories to be told of their resurrection or demise, which I hope can be shown in a future volume covering the 1990s.

The illustrations in this book are all my own (with the exception of three from Mike Bursell, kindly reproduced with his permission) and for each location, where possible, begin with views from that first, October 1982, visit. Subsequent pictures cover later visits and help to show the changes that occurred within the various yards over the following years.

Anyone’s first visit to Davis-Monthan AFB is, without doubt, a memorable occasion. The first action for most ‘first time’ visitors was a drive along the fence line, to take in the spectacle of thousands of retired aircraft stored in the desert. This

Masdc

was most easily achieved by heading eastbound from the main base entrance and driving along East Escalante Road, with lines of aircraft on the right side of the road, across the street from suburban houses!

By turning right at the end of Escalante, onto South Kolb Road – southbound –one could follow the base perimeter fence on the right-hand side, where the multitude of B-52s gave way to line upon line of S-2 Trackers, C-130 Hercules and more.

A further turn, left onto East Irvington Road – eastbound, and the spectacle continued on the right of the street, where wide off-road dirt areas allowed unlimited views across the vast parking areas.

B-52E 56-0650, missing some of its main undercarriage, was retired to the MASDC on 21st January 1970. is particular airframe survived a further 11 years before being cut up into sections and, eventually, removed to a smelter site on the edge of the base.

The view above was taken on East Irvington Road in October 1982, looking to the south-west, capturing the last examples of over 600 various C-97s retired to the MASDC. This magnificent line-up contains the final KC-97Ls that served with the USAF. Many had been frequent visitors to the UK through the 1960s and 70s, during the 10-year period of Operation Creek Party, the Air National Guard TDY to Frankfurt Rhein-Main AB in support of USAFE aerial refuelling requirements. At the time of this picture, 6th October 1982, a total of 32 KC-97Ls and one C-97G were still stored in the MASDC, all of which had been sold and moved off-site to the scrapyards by late 1986.

If the MASDC provided a viewing ‘spectacle’, the sight of numerous local companies located on the land adjacent to the base, whose business was directly related to the acquisition and disposal of aircraft no longer required by the various branches of the military, was equally surreal. The many chain-link fenced compounds, full of ageing