At the end of our stay in Chandler, Arizona, we drove down to Tucson and spent some of the day at the Pima Air and Space Museum along with a bus tour of the airplane boneyard at Davis Monthan AFB.

The Pima museum is a fantastic place. There were a couple of Mig 17’s and a (Polish) Mig 21 on display.

When I was in the Air Force (late 1960’s) I was a Chinese linguist. I generally didn’t fly reconnaissance missions where we’d see these airplanes. If a People’s Republic of China MIG came over water within 50 miles of our mission aircraft, we went home. However, I was sent as analyst on a late afternoon Russian reconnaissance mission up towards Vladivostok one day in 1967 as a replacement for a guy who fell getting on the bus to the flight line. Since I was handy, my manager said it’d be good for me, the Airborne Mission Supervisor agreed, so off I went. I do not remember much else about the mission other than we did get some company and I spent several minutes at the porthole watching in amazement. I think the escort was a Mig 17, but age has erased the specifics of that memory. I just remember being furious that I’d left my camera behind.

This was about the time that we on the Chinese side of the shop were paying a lot of attention to the Chinese Mig 21’s. For a long time what few Mig 21’s the Chinese had were quite a ways inland, west of Beijing. Surprisingly, a handful of them showed up one day on the coast at an airfield on the Shantung Peninsula and started practicing zoom climbs. Shortly after that one of our reconnaissance missions caught the action as one of these guys took out a Chinese National U-2.

All of the pictures from the museum have been developed. In the next few days, I’ll put together some pictures and commentary. Meanwhile, we’re enjoying the nice winter weather here in Colorado Springs!