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TUCSON, Ariz -- Motor heads who love vintage and modern planes can experience a perfect day in this sunny town.
In the morning, head nine miles southeast of downtown to visit the Pima Air & Space Museum, home of 250 vintage aircraft, including WWI and WWII planes. In the afternoon, outside the museum, board a bus that takes you a mile away to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base -- known as The Boneyard -- for a drive-by tour of famous, surplus aircraft built for and used by various branches of the U.S. military.
Inside the Pima Air & Space Museum, two-thirds of the collection is on loan from the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps and NASA, said Scott Marchand, who has been director of collections and aircraft restoration for eight years.
The first hangar holds a replica of The Wright Flyer, the plane brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright piloted on Dec. 17, 1903. Fourteen engines are displayed, including the Westinghouse 19 B "Yankee." The U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics asked Westinghouse Electric Corp. to develop aviation-related gas turbines in 1941. Finished in 1943, it was used in two experimental aircraft, the XFD-1 Phantom, the Navy's first all-jet aircraft and the Northrop XP-79 Flying Wing, a turbojet with 1,365 pounds of thrust.
- Where: 6000 E. Valencia Road, Tucson, AZ 85706.
- Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Last admission is at 4 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas.
- Information: www.pimaair.org or 1-520-574-0462.
- Tours: The museum sells tickets for tours of the "Boneyard" at nearby Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Buses leave the museum hourly for the Boneyard tour.
The late Louise Timken, whose family owned Timken Bearings, donated her snazzy red and white Lear Jet Model 23.
"She flew this airplane and had it customized with a zebra skin that she shot on safari," Mr. Marchand said, adding that the plane was donated in the mid-1980s when its owner stopped flying.
Inside the Freedom Hangar is an aerial reconnaissance spy plane built by Lockheed in the 1950s called the SR-71 Blackbird. Long, sleek and black, it's 93 percent titanium and flew at 3.2 mach, a little more than 2,200 miles per hour. Pilots wore full, high-altitude pressure suits.
Designed to be faster than any missile defense system or any aircraft sent up to intercept it, the Blackbird did high speed runs and took pictures of anything the U.S. military wanted.
Across from the Blackbird is the A-10, a plane with twin engines and tails plus a fully armored cockpit. Its hour of glory arrived during Operation Desert Storm when it destroyed Iraqi tanks.
"They are really designed for slow speed ground attacks," Mr. Marchand said, adding that pilots sit in a "titanium bathtub" designed to increase their ability to survive attacks.
Outside the Freedom Hangar sits the Freedom One Plane, which landed in Iran on Jan. 20, 1981, and delivered the remaining 52 American hostages home after 444 days of captivity. The military calls it a VC-137; civilians know it as a 707.
Inside Hangar Three are planes that flew in Europe during World War II.
The B-24 J is a long-range heavy bomber. This particular model was flown by the 446th Bomb Group based in Bungay, England. Initially, unit members painted a red donkey on the nose and called it "the red ass."
A high-ranking officer instructed the crew to rename the plane and its nose sports a brown donkey. Pilots flew 10-hour missions in the nonpressurized aircraft.
Nearby is the Hawker Hurricane, a maneuverable, well-armed aircraft that could take a lot of damage. The first modern monoplane fighter flown by Britain's Royal Air Force, this model is dark green with a red nose, the same colors of the model piloted by Robert Stanford Tuck, one of the RAF's highest scoring WWII aces.
"While the Spitfires are more glamorous, the Hurricane was the backbone of the RAF and some historians argue that it won the Battle of Britain for Britain," Mr. Marchand said.
A display of nose art and insignia that were removed from airplanes reveals the humorous and romantic side of aviators. Right after World War I, French fliers started personalizing their aircraft and Americans picked up the custom. The art features sweethearts, names of hometowns or states and battle scars.
The Boeing B-29 is the plane that flew out of Guam and over the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay while the treaty ending World War II was signed.
"The B-29 Superfortress is sort of the technological zenith of American aircraft technology during the second World War," Mr. Marchand said. It was the first operational American aircraft to incorporate a pressurized crew compartment that allows your crew to fly at higher altitudes in greater comfort. They are better able to endure longer missions. It had a centralized computer control system for defensive armament. With the exception of the tail turret, all of the gun turrets on the B-29 were remote-controlled. This made it very advanced."
Just steps from the museum, in a separate building, is a smaller museum devoted to the 390th Memorial Museum, home of the B-17. The museum was started by the 390th Bomb Group, whose members flew 301 combat missions during World War II.
"The B-17 engine was turbo supercharged, which allowed high altitude flying," Mr. Marchand said. "When the plane first flew, a Seattle newspaper reporter nicknamed it the flying fortress."
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