309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group [AMARG], Davis Monthan AFB, AZ
Immediately after World War II, the Army's San Antonio Air Technical Service Command established a storage facility for B-29 and C-47 aircraft at Davis-Monthan AFB. Chief reasons for selecting Davis-Monthan were Tucson's meager rainfall, low humidity and its alkaline soil, conditions making it possible to store aircraft indefinitely with a minimum of deterioration and corrosion. In addition, the soil (called caliche) is hard, making it possible to park aircraft in the desert without constructing concrete or steel parking ramps.
In 1964 all military aircraft storage and disposition centers were consolidated into a single entity, the Davis-Monthan facility, which assumed the name: Military Aircraft Storage and Disposition Center (MASDC). In 1985, the addition of aerospace vehicles (Titan II missiles) and the growing capability for restoring aircraft to flying status prompted a name change to Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC), until May 2007 when AMARC aligned as a Group under the 309th Maintenance Wing at Hill AFB, Utah. Now it is the
309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (309 AMARG) and includes aircraft and aerospace vehicles from the Air Force, Navy-Marine Corps, Army, Coast Guard, NASA and other federal agencies. Today the Group provides customer services including aircraft regeneration (restoring aircraft to flying status), programmed depot-level maintenance, and parts reclamation, in addition to its historic storage and disposal functions.
As the F-106's left service they went to AMARC, some went twice, before and after flying and surviving as QF-106 target Drones. Some AMARC surviving sixes are on static display, some were sent to the ocean floor as artificial reefs, others were used by NASA for special missions.
F-106 Delta Dart on Facebook /
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309th AMARG (MASDCIV) The AMARC Experiance /
AMARC on Wikipedia