USAF Aircraft Boneyard: "Desert Bonanza - The Story of the Military Aircraft Storage & Disposition Center" 1966 US Air Force

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Military Aircraft Storage & Disposition Center (MASDC)

Originally a public domain film from the US Air Force, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/309th_Aerospace_Maintenance_and_Regeneration_Group

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (309th AMARG), often called The Boneyard, is a United States Air Force aircraft and missile storage and maintenance facility in Tucson, Arizona, located on Davis–Monthan Air Force Base. The 309th AMARG was previously Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center, and the Military Aircraft Storage and Disposition Center, and its predecessor was established after World War II as the 3040th Aircraft Storage Group.

The 309th AMARG takes care of nearly 4,000 aircraft, which makes it the largest aircraft storage and preservation facility in the world. An Air Force Materiel Command unit, the group is under the command of the Ogden Air Logistics Complex at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The 309th AMARG was originally meant to store excess Department of Defense and Coast Guard aircraft, but has in recent years been designated the sole repository of out-of-service aircraft from all branches of the US government. The arid climate of the region makes the 309th AMARG an ideal location for storing aircraft, as there is very little humidity in the air that would corrode metal...

History

The first predecessor of the 309th AMARG was established in 1946 as the 4105th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Aircraft Storage) to house Boeing B-29 Superfortress and Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft. Davis–Monthan Field was chosen because of Tucson's low humidity, infrequent rainfall, alkaline soil and high altitude of 2,550 feet (780 m), reducing rust and corrosion. The hard soil makes it possible to move aircraft around without having to pave the storage areas.

In 1948, after the Air Force's creation as a separate service, the unit was renamed the 3040th Aircraft Storage Depot. In 1965, the Military Aircraft Storage and Disposition Center was organized and tasked with processing aircraft for all the United States armed forces, not just the Air Force. The Navy had operated its own boneyard at Naval Air Station Litchfield Park at Goodyear, Arizona, for Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard aircraft. In February 1965, some 500 aircraft were moved from Litchfield Park to Davis-Monthan. NAS Litchfield Park was finally closed in 1968.

In the 1980s, the center began processing intercontinental ballistic missiles for dismantling or reuse in satellite launches, and was renamed the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC) to reflect the expanded focus on all aerospace assets.

In the 1990s, in accordance with the START I treaty, the center was tasked with eliminating 365 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers. The progress of this task was to be verified by Russia via satellite and first-person inspection at the facility. Initially, the B-52s were chopped into pieces with a 13,000 pound guillotine winched by a steel cable supported by a crane. Later on, the tool of choice became K-12 rescue saws. This more precise technique afforded AMARC with salvageable spare parts.

In May 2007, the AMARC was transferred to the 309th Maintenance Wing, and the center was renamed the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG)...

There are four categories of storage for aircraft at AMARG:

Long Term (Type 1000) – Aircraft are kept intact for future use

Parts Reclamation (Type 2000) – Aircraft are kept, picked apart and used for spare parts

Flying Hold (Type 3000) – Aircraft are kept intact for shorter stays than Long Term

Excess of DoD needs (Type 4000) – Aircraft are sold off whole or in parts

AMARG employs 700 people (approximately 500 DoD civil servants, and 200 contractors). The 2,600-acre (11 km2) facility is adjacent to the base. On average, AMARG annually returns approximately $500 million worth of spare parts to military, government and allied customers...