The Aircraft Bone-Yard

At the air show I met a photographer by the name of Pamela Reed who has a website called Alter Ego Images http://www.alteregoimages.com/index.html .

One of her present projects, “Days Gone By” consists of photographing planes in Tucson’s AMARC or “aircraft bone-yard” as its known and the service men that either piloted or in my case wrenched on while in the service years ago. Most of the guys are either Korean War or Vietnam Conflict era pilots. Some are fighter aces or “war heroes” in one way or another. To say I was surprised when she said she wanted to photograph me, would be an understatement. When I met her at the airshow, I mentioned that I had just re-enlisted after being out for some 15 years and she said that many of the planes and missile systems I worked on some 15 – 23 years ago are already moth-balled in the bone-yard and that she would like to take some pictures of me with them. Well, I thought that would be pretty cool, but considering the others she was shooting, I didn’t feel quite worthy to be included.

We meet a few weeks back at the bone-yard to do the photographs and here I was riding around in the back of a van full of older guys who were all Navy and Air Force pilots or navigators, with thousands of hours flying many of the different models of aircraft in the AMARC. The stories these guys told of launching off aircraft carriers or flying covert intelligence gather missions during the early stages of the Cold War were amazing. One surprise came as I talked with one of the Air Force Navigators about my work as a Nuclear Weapons Technician during the end of Cold War. Due to the age of the aircraft and weapons in the DoD inventory, I had in fact trained on, worked on or around bases, aircraft and weapons that this guy had flown during his time in the military! Pam the photographer is working on getting her photographs into some of this years USAF 60th Anniversary celebrations and wonders if the exhibition of her photos for this project could end up in the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB or even the Smithsonian! She took a couple quick color digital shots during the photo shoot you will see below.

BGM-109 Ground Launched Cruise Missile Transporter/Erector/Launcher

F-16 from the 162nd TFG, Tucson IAP