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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: Strange Airports
Message-ID: <13889@styx.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Oct-85 13:29:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: styx.13889
Posted: Wed Oct  9 13:29:18 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Oct-85 20:17:15 EDT
References: <124@ulose.UUCP> <5300005@ccvaxa> <779@terak.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore, CA
Lines: 28
Keywords: Marana Air Park

In article <779@terak.UUCP> doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) writes:
> Another spooky airport (what a choice of adjective!) is Pinal
> County Airpark (MZJ), formerly Marana Airpark, in southern Arizona.
> . . . 
> 
> MZJ is "home base" for Evergreen International Airlines, a "charter
> airline" which hotly denies any relationship with a certain Government
> agency.  Even so, to this day MZJ has a TACAN and no VOR, and I've
> never seen another "municipal airport" with active guard stations at
> the entrance.

Marana is the final "graveyard" for many planes. The site was chosen
as a mothball area because of the low humidity, lack of precip, and
(at the time) cheap acreage. There are rows and rows of retired
airliners and military craft, a good number of which are stripped for
spares. It's impressive and depressing at the same time.

If you look through AIRLINER PRODUCTION LIST (Aviation Data Centre,
London) you can find hundreds of references to "WFU Marana" or
"Preserved Marana" in the listings.

I suspect the guards are due either to the presence of so much USAF
and Navy hardware (inactive, but possibly still sensitive) or to the
military operations that take place there from time to time.

Michael C. Berch
mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
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