Pinal Air Park Boneyard

USA / Arizona / Avra Valley /
 aircraft, interesting place
 Upload a photo
Pinal Airpark (IATA: MZJ, ICAO: KMZJ) is an airport located seven miles (11 km) northwest of the central business district (CBD) of Marana, a city in Pinal County, Arizona, USA.
Its main purpose is to act as a "boneyard" for aircraft. Old airplanes are stored there with the hope that the dry desert climate will prevent rust and other forms of corrosion in case the aircraft is pressed into service in the future. Even so, many aircraft which are brought there wind up being scrapped. Nearby Davis-Monthan air force base provides the same service to the US military.
Pinal Airpark is the last known home of the Beechcraft Starship.
Pinal Airpark covers 2,080 acres (8.4 km²) and has one runway.
Marana became the headquarters of all CIA air operations during the Vietnam War years, when it was the primary facility of Intermountain Airways/Airlines/Aviation a wholly owned CIA "front" company which was used to supply covert operations in Southeast Asia & elsewhere.
Intermountain was quite famous for it's thinly veiled CIA special ops which included development & use of the Fulton Skyhook, but it's cover was it's non-scheduled freight & maintenance operations.
Marana was the principal continental United States maintenance base for southeast Asia CIA operations ops: Air America, Continental Air Services, etc.

www.globalair.com/airport/pinal-airpark-mzj.aspx
azdot.gov/legacyapplications/airports/airports_list.asp...
www.airnav.com/airport/KMZJ
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinal_Airpark
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   32°30'31"N   111°19'42"W

Comments

  • cool place to have a visit
This article was last modified 8 years ago