Specialty Press' AMARG: America's Military Boneyard

It is a fact that like all of us, airplanes also get old and eventually have to die. Like the Egyptians of old, some get preserved so they can be seen by later generations, but most of them go to the great smelter in the skies. In the past, there have been many places in the US where the US military has stored and later scrapped aircraft. After WWII, there were literally dozens of locales, each busily scrapping no longer needed war machines. Eventually, all of the storage and scrapping operations were centrally located in Tuscon, at Davis-Mothnan AFB. This area has a perfect climate for this work as the soil is compact and rain is a rarity, thus helping to keep planes preserved for years.

Some of the aircraft stored there return to flight, some are picked apart for useful materials to keep the rest of the fleet going, but most of them are only there for a short time before being sold off for scrap to the various civilian entities that crowd the perimeter fence like hungry dogs awaiting a snack.

In this book, the authors take us on a journey through the history of AMARG (which typical of the USAF, has gone through several name changes, all costing taxpayers millions in changing over all the forms and signs to indicate the 'new' entity).  It starts with WWII and works its way to the present day. This is mostly a photo book and choosing the landscape format fits this type of book quite well. The images are, for the most part, very crisp and clear and superbly printed. As you might imagine, most of the images are from the present and near present, but there are a sufficient number of older shots to make things interesting and add some spice to things. The entire process of preserving an aircraft is covered as well as some additional attention to the various 'fleets' of planes that have gone through the storage and recycling process.

In all, it makes for not only a fine read, but also one that brings to this editor quite a bit of nostalgia as I see on these pages actual aircraft on which I've worked or been associated. It is a book that I can easily recommend to you.