Pima Air Museum Trip

I've promised I'd write about my time in Tucson, and I've been very lazy getting the details of the trip out and to my public!  But as I sit here I am filled with warmth just remember the sunshine that we were fortunate to soak up.  Cuz, in Seattle, there's not much sunshine to be soaking. At least not until July 5th - for those non Seattle type folks, the standing joke in Seattle is the sun comes out the day after the 4th of July. That's when summer starts. Supposedly.

Right, back to the air museum. 

On my "bucket list" for lack of a better cliche to use, has been to visit the airplane graveyard in Tucson.  We've driven past it a number of times, and I always want to shout "STOP the car." and jump out to shoot these amazing old airplane set out to pasture.  If you're a child of the 80's and you watched the movie Can't Buy me Love, this graveyard is in the move.  Anyhow, in all the years I've been going to Tucson, I've never had a chance to go see it.

This was the year. The graveyard is connected to the Pima Air & Space Museum, so we decided that would be close enough since we didn't have clearance to get into the graveyard.

Upon entering the museum we were greeted by the local squirrels - I think they were called Round Tail ground squirrels or prairie dogs or something like that.

They didn't seem at all afraid of humans.  I could have stood there and shot a bunch of photos of this creature, but I had planes to see.

The museum has several hangers that house some WWII planes and then some other really cool planes. SSIL went off to do the walking tour of the WWII planes, while BigBro and I started our photography adventure.

We didn't start at the Tomcat fighter, but it was definitely one of my favorites. Besides BigBro being BigBro - it was awesome to get up close and see the insides of this fighter.  You really have to be a small person to fit into these planes.

My favorite plane of all times was on display there. The Lockheed SR71 Blackbird! Woof.  I have some fond memories of my younger years in LandScatter, CA of the SR71 being test flown over our little town. So sleek, so powerful.  Unfortunately, it was hard to get a good photo of it being that we couldn't get above it.

Outside the hangers was where the real fun began. 300 airplanes and helicopters on display.  We saw them all. AND we got on the tram and had a nice veteran tell us all about the airplanes on the lot.  Here are a few of my favorites.

The NASA SuperGuppy Cargo

The plane the Iran hostages came home on.



The rest of my photos are here if you feel so inclined to see a bunch of cool planes.