The Great Escape - Davis-Mothan AFB Graveyard

[alfsauve]

Not the movie, which was also playing this past weekend, but the reality show.

Now I'm not usually taken to watching reality shows, but this one took place in the DM AFB in Tucson.   The participants had to escape from a B-52 and make their way across the graveyard, ending up inside a C-5.   It was pretty lame as far as their ability goes.  (Do they pick from the bottom of the applicants?) 

In my short AF career I spent many hours on those planes, both on the ground and in the air.  It brought back fond memories to see the insides of them again. And I left blood, sweat and tears on some of the planes pictured.   One of the regrets is not staying in for 20, but then I'd still be sitting here today missing "my" birds. 

If I haven't posted it before, here is a picture of me (standing, second from right) at Chanute, early 1969.

[kmitch200]

I didn't know they had any B-52s left at DM.  I used to enjoy driving by the 'graveyard' in awe of the HUGE lines of buffs that were mothballed.

Last time we went by I had to descrbe it to She Who Must Be Obeyed because almost all of them had been chopped up for scrap. 

[alfsauve]

There only appeared to be a few and not in great shape.

[alfsauve]

Just looked at google maps. I counted 13 B-52s on the west side of Kolb Rd and 9 on the east side.  I think the TV show was filmed on the east side because that's where the C-5s are.

Just rechecked and there's a bunch more further east. B-52s that is.

[kmitch200]

For those that didn't get to see them, about 10-15(?) yrs post Vietnam the lines of Buffs used to strech forever.
It was like standing in a farmers field and only seeing crops to the horizon. That this was what the USAF was mothballing was amazing testimony to US production capability.

Don't know if this pic is actually from DMAFB but it used to be similar to this....

[Sponsor]

[Tyler Durden]

I was there in the summer of 92.

The BUFF's were actually getting chopped up by like a guillotine wielding crane as part of the SALT talks/treaties.

This blade like hunk of steel would drop from up in the air... Lop off a wing... Lop off the other wing ... Then the fuselage was chopped up into 3 pieces.... Then I guess the parts were sold off as scrap.

The Ruskies were also there to watch GLCM's getting dismantled.