The Skinny
- What: Pima Air and Space Museum, 6000 East Valencia Road, Tucson, Arizona, 85756, 520-574-0462. The museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $19.50 for adults. Discounts are available for seniors, children, Pima County residents and two-day visits.
- How to Get There: The Pima Air and Space Museum is just a few miles north of Interstate 10. Take the East Valencia Road exit and watch for the expansive field of aircraft on your right (you can’t miss it).
- Best Kept Secrets: Nearby Mama Louisa’s for dinner (it’s on the north side of Davis-Monthan AFB). The eggplant parmigiana and home-made pasta are terrific!
Pima Air and Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona
Triple-digit temperatures and near-zero humidity make for a challenging motorcycle ride, but such conditions are perfect for storing aircraft. Our military does so on Tucson’s Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Today’s security environment no longer permits tours on the airbase, but the adjacent Pima Air and Space Museum offers an even better overview of our aviation history. No matter what your interest (early military aircraft, World War II, nose art, weapons, helicopters, trainers and more), this museum has it. Comprised of several large hangars and an immense outdoor display area, Pima is the biggest non-government aviation museum in the U.S. Pima has more than 425 aircraft and 125,000 aviation artifacts.
Entering the museum through Hangar 1, the immediate perception is one of expansiveness and aviation. Exhibits range from an early Wright Brothers flyer to modern military aircraft. There are Navy seaplanes, an A-10 Warthog, an F-4 Phantom, an F-14 Tomcat, Blue Angels and Thunderbird jets, helicopters (including the Apache and a special operations Bell helicopter), and more. One of Hangar 1’s interesting aircraft is the SR-71 Blackbird (our now-retired Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance spy plane); first fielded in the 1960s, the SR-71 is still impressive. There are nuclear weapons displayed in Hangar 1; several are surprisingly small.
You could spend the entire day in Hangar 1, but there is much more. Hangar 3 has a highly polished and pristine B-24 Liberator (the “Bungay Buckaroo”) that flew with India’s air force on coastal patrol duties until the 1960s, when India donated it to the museum. Hangar 3 includes World War II aircraft and related items, including a V-1 Nazi buzz bomb. A glistening aluminum Boeing B-29 Superfortress dominates Hangar 4 (its iconic cockpit inspired Hans Solo’s Millenium Falcon in the Star Wars movie). Hangar 4 continues the focus on World War II but extends it to Korean War aircraft. Hangar 5 focuses on the Pacific Theater, and many of the aircraft displayed here saw actual combat experience. Hangar 5 includes a Japanese Nakajima Hayabusa (an airplane, not the motorcycle), a Curtiss P-40E Warhawk, a Consolidated PB4Y, and related weapons items.
Exiting Hangar 1 to visit the rest of the museum reveals the outdoor display area and provides a sense of just how big the museum is. There are 80 acres of aircraft on the airfield, including helicopters, early foreign and U.S. fighters, electronic warfare aircraft, NASA aircraft, Presidential aircraft, transports, commercial aircraft and firefighting airplanes.
My advice is to visit Pima during a time other than the summer months. If you go in the summer, go early and walk through Hangar 1 to the outside displays first (the idea is to visit the airfield before it gets too hot). Wear good walking shoes and a hat and bring sunscreen and water. The inside hanger display areas are cooler; you can visit them as the outside temperatures climb. Plan on spending at least a half day; a full day would be more appropriate.
