So I have traveled to Tucson from Phoenix and back all the time. Outside of Tucson on I-10 you can see the airplane graveyard from the highway. I've always wanted to see it up close. Well on the way back from Tucson on saturday, I thought I would take the exit and see if I could get a close up look. That blurry picture was taken from the parking lot of the guard shack. I rolled up in my new-ish hooptie and the guard (who was my size) is like, "can I help you?"
"I've always wanted to see this place up close," I said.
"It's not open to the public son," he said. Son? You are probably younger then me man.
"Oh, ok, I'll just pull a u-turn and get out of your hair," I said.
"no, you'll put it in reverse and back out that way," he said.
So I did. I pulled over into the parking lot and snapped the picture. This guard shack was pretty ghetto. It had just the single bar gate and some mini speed bumps and the security guys were wearing Evergreen Security patches.
I was disappointed so I called up my dad and see if he had some pull or something, maybe he could get me in. His first response was "you didn't!"
"What's the big deal?" I said.
"Yea, that's not only an airplane graveyard, but they also test Apache helicopters there and there is a big CIA presence there as well, think Area 51 type security," he said.
Personnally, I think he's pulling my leg, but you never know. I remember living in Montana and driving down the highway just to see a perfect 8 ft by 8ft square patch of grass with a fence and barbwire around it (missile silo). So I am keeping an open mind. Maybe one of my friends that works for that place that makes rockets knows something.
7 comments:
Even if I did (and I am not confirming that I do) I couldn't talk about it. Sorry... =(
Your dad's not pulling your leg. I don't know if operations are still active there but I know at one time it was a hot bed of covert activity. Barry Goldwater tried to get in there years ago when he was a senator. As he drew closer to the gate weapons were drawn on him.
Crazy. You should have said they pulled guns on you mike!
My parents and I tried the same thing, though no guy from the guardshack came out or anything. We just pulled up to the gate, disappointed, and turned around and went home. I think we had family with us that wanted to see or something.
I googled 'airplane graveyard' and came up with an interesting find (in reality I was searching for an Area 51 connect with no luck.
http://www.virtualtucsonmagazine.com/vtmsections/valleypages/airplanegrave.html
I seems, according to this page, you can schedule a tour through the Pima Air Museum (pimaair.org) of the graveyard with a reservation: (520) 618-4806
I believe those links are in reference to a different graveyard... To many dead planes in this state to be sure... =(
They may be... but according to the one the tour is on actually takes place on the Air Force base there (which is right off I-10 just like Mike wrote)... even though the Museum is not part of the base itself.
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