Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog XXIV

I was a volunteer docent and tram tour guide at Tucson’s Pima Air and Space Museum for nine years, quitting just days before PASM shut down for the Covid pandemic in March 2020. I’m just a member now, visiting once or twice a year to see what’s new or lurking back in the restoration yard. Over the years I’ve posted 24 PASM photoblogs (there, I’ve just given you a handy link to all of them).

Here’s what I saw on my most recent visit, just this morning.

So what’s new? First, a Gyrodyne YRON-1 Rotordyne, a one-man helicopter developed for the US Marine Corps in the 1950s but never put into production. At first glance I thought it was powered by a VW engine, but it’s actually a 62-hp Porsche. Big nope from me, and apparently the Marines thought so too.

Next, a Rutan Variviggen SP, a popular homebuilt from the 1970s.

PASM’s F-106A Delta Dart interceptor was taken off display for repainting in early 2020, before the museum closed for the pandemic. They towed it back out to the display area just last week, and it’s looking fine. Check out the shadow in the first shot!

As usual, the really interesting stuff is hiding in the restoration yard, starting with a set of wings. Any guesses what they belong to?

The United Nations markings are the giveaway: the wings go with a newly-acquired Saab J29 Tunnan (Barrel), a Swedish-built fighter, a few of which were used during a UN peacekeeping operation of the early 1960s. This is a photo of perhaps the same jet over Kaminaville, The Congo, in 1961. I didn’t take it, obviously, but I thought you might want to know what a Tunnan looks like.

Also in the restoration yard, a De Havilland Canada TO-5C Dash 7. Some of these saw military service in Canada and Venezuela, but most were operated by regional airlines.

Here’s a Grumman Albatross in civil markings with an interesting pod under its wing. I assumed, since most of these amphibians started life as search & rescue aircraft for the USAF and Coast Guard, that the pod carried an emergency life raft. I was partially right. Yes, the Albatross was originally operated by the USAF, but the pod was added by its new civilian owner. It carries a jet ski. Well. Somebody knows how to have fun!

Finally, a check on the museum’s hangar queen, Balls Three, the only surviving B-52A, once a mothership for the X-15 and other test aircraft, now going on its eighth year in restoration. When I was still a docent, a friend who volunteered in restoration told me Balls Three had originally been taken off display to be cleaned and repainted — like the F-106 at the top of this post — but that when they took a look at the wings they discovered generations of birds had been living inside, their acidic droppings eating away at the aluminum panels. Even so, eight years and no visible progress since my last two visits in September 2021 and April 2022? I’m surprised the USAF, which owns this historic aircraft, isn’t nipping at PASM’s heels to hustle up.

That’s it for aircraft. I’ve long complained about how hard it is to access the museum’s back lot, where a lot of interesting (and in some cases one-of-a-kind) aircraft are on outdoor display, and from where one can get a good look into the restoration yard. Visitors can see the back lot from the main display area, but it’s surrounded by fencing and it’s not obvious where the entrance point is. I see now they’re putting a footbridge over the deep gully separating the back lot from the main display area, which’ll add an access point in a well-trafficked area. Yea for that!

I arrived at opening time, 9 AM, to find a considerable line of visitors ahead of me at admissions. Crowds are finally beginning to come back, but the docent and tour situation is still grim: there were no tram tours on offer today (almost everyone ahead of me in line asked about them and was told no), and I saw only one docent, giving a short talk about the SR-71 Blackbird to a group of visitors in Hangar One. Tours of the nearby USAF Boneyard were canceled before the Covid pandemic, and word is they aren’t coming back.

Here’s a look at visitor parking this morning, more populated than it’s been over the past two and a half years, but far from full. Visitors may be returning, but probably not in sufficient numbers to keep the museum out of the red. PASM took out two large PPP loans earlier during the pandemic (which I think were forgiven), but these days? I don’t know how the museum can possibly be making ends meet.

The Congo image aside, photos here are my own, and there are several more in an album on Flickr. Click here to see ’em!

— back to the Air-Minded Index