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Davis Monthan


Wil Sanchez
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My wife and I recently made a trip to Davis Monthan AFB near Tucson Arizona. I felt the need to visit some of the planes I have worked on that are no longer in use and can be found only in Museums. I took 547 photos of planes in the Private Junkyards near the base, on the bus tour of the Boneyard and the Pima Air and Space Museum. I am posting some of the Herks I saw on the trip.

I was also amazed at the number of planes I have never seen before.

The 1st photo was taken while we were at one of the private junkyards. It was doing touch and goes and I decided to take a photo of it. My Wife made a comment about the Shark's mouth painted on it. I informed her that they didn't paint Shark Mouths on Herks. (don't I feel stupid after viewing the photo).

The 2nd photo is 64-0502. The 3rd photo is 62-1864. The 4th photo is BOO. The 5th photo is a Silver Herk.

Enjoy Wil

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Here are some more photos from D-M AFB.

The 1st is lots of Herks.

The 2nd is below the Pilots window and shows the CC. This is 1 of 2 Herks at the Pima Air and Space Museum.

The 3rd is a YC-14 supposed to be a replacement for the Herk.

The 4th and 5th are of a Stainless Steel plane called a Conestoga which is welded instead of riveted.

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Hey Ya'll!

I spent my first 14yrs in the cops (Security side) - had to take a remote to get a BOP (instead of getting sent back to Grand Forks). Finally landed up at DM circa 1992. The Law Enforcement side "worked" the gates to the AMARC/boneyard. On weekends (AMARC was closed) I'd vol' to "take" the AMARC post - a full eight hour tour as far as I was concerned. They still had quite the count on the B-52D's ("Big Belly") waiting for the final chop. There were a few Herk's but not in lines - scattered about. The one problem we had was the furthest point of the AMARC from the gates were a good distance out and had a smattering of 707's from different airlines (no idea why - can' them for parts?) At any rate it was not uncommon to find homeless folks had set up a homestead, usually in the old airliners. Years later, after the retrain I had a chance to see the back 40 again - they'd cleared out most of the BUFF's and airliners...... I did post the pic of the Coast G. 130 on the old page, not sure if it's still accessable.

Fleagle

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The Air Force used the 707s to re-engine the KC-135As. They replaced the KC-135A turbojets with 707 turbofans. The re-engined KC-135As became KC-135Es. They also used some other parts, but I forget what they were.

Best wishes,

Grant

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cool photos, thanks for sharing.

I've been lucky, had a couple of good TDY's recently, ie Tucson, and Indianapolis.

Hit the Pima museum, and the AF museum out in Dayton (short drive from Indy). Was down at Hurlburt a few months ago, even hit up P-cola NAS museum as well. Even though I see planes everyday, still like to check the old ones out...feel bad for the 141's, as no one else used them, what is left is it, rest are gone.

1864 and 502...worked on both of them at Pope and Ramstein....probably the desert as well, but that is just a blur

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donwon,

What you propably saw at Naha was Zantop's Armstrong-Whitworth AW-650. Zantop flew them when they bought Universal Airlines. I couldn't find one in Zantop's livery, but the link below shows a pretty good photo of one.

Don R.

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Elan-Overnight-Delivery/Armstrong-Whitworth-AW-650/0494746/L/

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Topboltsto400, you are welcome. The following 2 photos show the last C-141 at D-M. They scrapped out 200 just before we were there in late April.

There's only ONE left now? That sure didn't take long. I always hoped that some of the "low" time airframes would be in long term storage.

Thanks for the info. Although I think I'll be depressed for the rest of the day now.:(

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Thanks DonR but that isn't the plane. These were twin engine. They were shaped like the one in your picture.

They had Zantop painted on the side. They would land and go to a place in front of the hanger and stay only a few minutes then taxi back out and take off.

I never got real close to one of them.

The first ones that landed there had recip engines, then the same planes started comeing in with turboprop engines. I remember we all were surprised when that happened.

Half of this stuff I could be dreaming about as I do have CRS.

Thanks for the help.

Donwon.

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The Air Force used the 707s to re-engine the KC-135As. They replaced the KC-135A turbojets with 707 turbofans. The re-engined KC-135As became KC-135Es. They also used some other parts, but I forget what they were.

Best wishes,

Grant

When I was at Fairford when we first reopened it, we had a 54 model tanker that had been modded as the TAC flying command post. Lots of the interior fittings we ex-707 airliner stuff the crew chief said came off the airliners at D-M. This would have been 1980ish.

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Looking back over the photos I noticed that B00 is flanked by a YC-14 on the right and a YC-15 on the left. They were both supposed to replace the Herk. I'm glad they didn't because the Herk is my kind of plane. Even the name is great "Hercules".

Wil

There were two YC-14s and two YC-15s built. Anyone know what happened to the other two acft?

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