Davis Monthan AFB, AZ Transient Ramp 1977-79

[Larry Wielgosz]

Davis-Monthan AFB Tucson, AZ had a busy transient ramp. I was a helo guy who volunteered to work the transient line for a month or so. Friday evenings was the busiest. The aircraft started coming in around 3pm to 8pm. The average number I recall was 35 to 40 aircraft. It was a good stopping point for aircrew going on a cross country jaunt. Some aircraft were for MASDC (during this era). Most were just passing through. It made for a good variety as you can see. 1977-1979.

Larry

[Second Air Force]

Beautiful!

That T-33 is gorgeous, and I'll have to make sure a friend of mine sees the A-4 photo as he was a maintenance guy in VMA-214 at that general time.

Scott

[Clifford Bossie]

Neat photos. A great time. Note all of the stencils on the Luke F-4C.

[bluehawk15]

Luke? You mean the F-4 with "LA" on the tail? That's Barksdale's code, isn't it? I think Luke is "LF". Of course I could be wrong, I'm due one today.

[bluehawk15]

Duplicate post, sorry.

[Clifford Bossie]

Luke? You mean the F-4 with "LA" on the tail? That's Barksdale's code, isn't it? I think Luke is "LF". Of course I could be wrong, I'm due one today.

Nope, not Barksdale. Not in the time period of the photos anyway. Luke was "LA" at the time and Barksdale being SAC hads no tail codes. Later the reserve F-16 unit at Luke became "LR" and after the F-15s left Luke the 56th became "LF" for "Luke Falcons". That freed up the "LA" codes for Barksdale. Prior to the end of SAC the only codes used at Barksdale were the "BD" code used by the reserve A-10 unit. So: 70s and 80s' LA = Luke.

[bluehawk15]

Thanks for clearing that up! I was wondering what an F-4 was doing at Barksdale!

[michaelharadon]

Real nice; they bring back memories of going out to Luke on occasion and seeing similar ramps up through the mid 80's. I was young then, young enough to think things like, gee, do I really need another shot of the Phantom, I already took one and I have three more Phantom shots at home. And, dang, that's at .25 each, and besides, they'll be flying for a long time to come...

[JBoyle]

Neat photos. A great time. Note all of the stencils on the Luke F-4C.

It looks like a model at an IPMS show. You don't usually see sensils stand out like that in real life...which is why it looks like a model.
Must have just been out of depot or the paint shop.

And you're right, LA is/was Luke. Note the F-15s have it as well.
IIRC, Luke was the F-15 training base back when they were new and thus one of the first bases to have them.