Bittersweet Spotting at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ

All by itself Tucson, Arizona is a special place. Nestled among a scattered series of mountains and over half-a-mile in altitude it plays host to a range of cultural activities: wild west fairs, art shows, rodeos and restaurants that will blow your socks off. If you're a nature photographer then paradise is right outside your door: Sabino Canyon, the Catalina, Santa Rita, Tucson and Rincon mountain ranges and of course, the lightning storms. But if aviation is your game then this is the place to be, especially when it comes to sighting historical aircraft and events.

Tucson is home to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and the 355th Fighter Wing which hosts 3 squadrons of freshly converted A-10C Thunderbolt IIs (two dedicated to training the Air Force's newest crop of Warthog drivers), the 563rd Rescue Group flying the HH-60 Pave Hawk and the HC-130P/E Hercules and the 55th Electronic Combat Group with their EC-130H Compass Calls. But nestled to the east of the airfield is a special place known blandly as the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group or AMARG. While not officially endorsed by the powers that be, it is known far and wide as The Boneyard.

The name boneyard comes from the legend of a place in Africa where old elephants go to die, a place said to be like a eerie forest with ribs and tusks instead of trees. And to be honest, some parts of AMARG look just like that: hulks of C-141 Starlifters cocked to one side missing pieces of their fuselage like some giant pack of metal-eating hyenas just finished it off. Tails of C-5A Galaxies blotting out the sun and leaving ragged shadows on the compacted soil. Aircraft come here to be put into long-term storage for possible re-use or, in many cases, cannibalized so their parts can keep other healthier members of their kind in the air and ready for action.

But another part of the 309th's mission is regeneration. Bringing the dead back to life as it were. There was a time when the USAF sent large numbers of A-10A Thunderbolt IIs here, but then a little thing called Desert Storm happened and now, many years later, many of those Warthogs pulled from the Boneyard have been upgraded to A-10C status and re-winged to fly and fight for many years to come.

So with this background information we come to a spotting day that was bittersweet for me. Bitter was the sight of three McDonnell Douglas F-15C Eagles from the 33rd
Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, FL on final approach. A tight and near-perfect 3-ship formation broke to land and a part of aviation history unfolded before me: the last aircraft of a 30-year legacy of F-15 Eagle operations at Eglin had touched down for a final rest at the 309th.

The sweet part of the day was a howl from behind and it took a moment for me to realize that what I was seeing was a legend: a Phantom from the past. Specifically, an RF-4C Phantom II 69-0356 in the markings of Bergstrom AFB, TX in which it was admitted to AMARG, completing a test flight to be returned to operational status as a QRF-4C drone used to train today's military pilots in live-fire instruction sorties. Hearing those J79 engines howling as the pilots pulled the reins to slow for landing is one of those sounds that makes your heart go pitty-pat if you love aircraft. I savored every moment as it turned to final knowing this might be the only chance I get to see this Recce Rhino. And then he went around again and a team of horses couldn't have pulled the smile off of my face. Here's hoping for more bittersweet days to come.