In the southwestern desert country outside Tucson, Arizona, is the largest military aircraft storage center in the country. Begun with the need to securely store no longer needed aircraft at the end of World War II, and continuing to expand as technology produced newer fighter aircraft making older models obsolete, the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) operation continued to expand to the point where it currently holds more than 4,000 military aircraft of all types and categories. Aircraft experts and historians Ron Strong and Nicholas A. Ceronico have collaborated in "AMARG: America's Military Aircraft Boneyard - A Photo Scrapbook" to provide an informed and informative photographic survey providing an impressive perspective on the variety and range of aircraft held in this facility. Profusely illustrated with full color photography, each image is captioned, providing an accurate historical context. A superbly produced and presented 144-page compendium, "AMARG: America's Military Aircraft Boneyard - A Photo Scrapbook" is a core addition to personal, academic, and community library reference Military Aircraft and Aviation reference collections.

There have been a number of books about the aircraft stored at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, but most of them have been rather plain photo studies of mothballed aircraft. This book, though, impressed me as being a bit more. For one thing, the book goes into the history of the place, with plenty of historic photos. Among these is one of a field full of B-36s, with their removed propellers forming the fence! Also one of a lineup of ex-airline Boeing 707s, all minus their nose cones, engines and tail surfaces, which have been stripped to upgrade the KC-135 fleet. And one of removed B-52G tail turrets, all in a neat row. There is an emphasis on unique aircraft and those with nose art or some other special feature. And while there aren't many photos of the actual scrapping process, there is a description of boneyard tours and the adjacent Pima Air & Space Museum (though without any photos of the latter). Unless you dislike seeing a lot of photos of once-proud birds being picked clean, this book is worth looking into.