Pima Pilgrimage

I'd often heard modellers enthuse about the Air Museum at Pima, and last Tuesday I discovered why. My wife and I took a couple of days from our stay in Phoenix to drive down to Tucson, where we spent several hours at the Museum. Spread out on 80 acres there are 250 aircraft to see so it was an exhausting but incredible experience. As you can imagine from being parked in the baking Arizona heat and sand-blasting desert winds, the outdoor exhibits aren't in the best of condition, but where else could you stand alongside B-52s, a B-36, a Mojave helicopter and a B-58? (The weathering effects in themselves are quite photogenic – not necessarily accurate for aircraft in service but useful inspiration for abandoned and derelict subjects). The indoor exhibits are much better maintained and well presented, and these include a B-29, B-24, Hurricane, F-14 and C-46 amongst many, many others. After six hours of roaming around the site we'd barely scratched the surface of what the museum has on display, nor did we have time to sign up for the boneyard tour. To a modeller and a keen amateur photographer the Pima Air Museum offers almost unlimited resources, and I'd love to go back someday.

Below are some random pictures, I'll try and post a few more over the coming weeks. The photos have been reduced to 1200 pixels wide, but I've posted an example of a full size image here.

Spot the model geek... Photo by my long-suffering wife

F-16 Surprise

There isn't much of a military air presence in Calgary, so when the occasional CF-18 does fly over, virtually the entire street rushes out of their homes to catch a glimpse. So we found it somewhat unusual that the inhabitants of Surprise, Arizona – very close to Luke AFB and where we're currently on vacation – don't even glance upwards as F-16s thunder over their golf carts. I, on the other hand, was getting whiplash from leaping off my deck chair everytime I heard a rumble in the sky, so yesterday my wife and I decided to drive to the end of the runway at the air base and get a proper look, as well as take some pics. It was harder than it looked: by the time we'd spotted the little black specks hurtling off the runway and got the camera ready the F-16s were virtually on top of us, and trying to get them in the lens, let alone focus, was pretty hard. The noise was deafening, but man, they were impressive. (I only have a 200mm zoom so these have been greatly enlarged).