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dusty

I bet this ride brought back a lot of memories for these guys and their families.
The film clip is 22 megs. in size.

http://www.c141heaven.us/movies/C141retire.wmv

Dusty
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Me#1You#10 · Site Admin Joined: 06 May 2004 Posts: 6503

That was a terrific tribute to a workhorse of the Air Force. It won't be the same Air Force that my generation will always recall without it.

Well done to Lockheed and to all who participated in it's concept, development, production and, most of all, it's utilization.

I B Squidly · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject:

If you want some heartbreak satellite Google Davis Monthan se of Tucson. You'll see the rest of the Starlifters in pieces along side acres of B52s and Phantoms. The Ghost Fleet can be depressing as well.
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dusty · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:02 pm Post subject:

zinfella · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject:

I was stationed at NAF Litchfield Park, back in '57. It's now a civilian field, but the old buildings are still there. The base was in Avondale, Arizona, a few miles out of Phoenix. Anyway, being a maintenance and preservation facility, there were a few thousand planes stored there. When the base was shut down, the remaining planes were transferred to DM in Tuscon.

The place was pretty spooky at night because wetbacks would sometimes sleep in the old planes. We had two sentries doing a barrier patrol on foot. they would walk in opposite directions from the main gate, and meet again about half way around the fence line. There was a lot of old WWll aircraft there, even PBY's.

Next door to the base was the Goodyear plant, and they had a B-29. Our runway extended into the Goodyear property, and they use their section for their own aircraft, except for the B-29. For that they used our runway because their section of it was too short.

Litchfield was also a stop for blimps moving from one coast to the other, back then. Wow, that was over 50 years ago! LOL
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I B Squidly · Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:26 am Post subject:

Zinfella,

Goodyear is named for the tire company. Litchfield was their CEO. They came to Phoenix to grow long grain Egyptian cotton for tire tread. Arizona at one time reached #3 in US cotton production (3 crops a year). Currently the Avondale field is refurbishing DC10s and training pilots for Lufthansa.

Phoenix Sky Harbor was so named to service airships as they were called in the '20s. In the 2nd war the valley had a dozen training fields enjoying the 360 days a year of good weather. Falcon. Avondale, Scottsdale, Glendale, Deer Valley etc continue in aviation. Thunderbird, where they filmed Spencer Tracy's "Forty Seconds Over Tokyo" was filmed is now a school.

Nothing rusts in Arizona if you're looking for old car parts or wanting to park a plane. North of Tucson at Marana commercial aircraft out of service are parked awaiting a new lease, service and paint.
_________________
"KILL ALL THE LAWYERS!"

-Wlm Shakespeare