Pima Air & Space Museum, AZ, USA - 26/01/2009

Our first morning in Tucson was spent at the incredible Pima Air & Space Museum, a collection totalling more than 270 aircraft.

Guarding the roundabout on the way in is this A-7D in AZ ANG markings. As you can see, conditions for photography were ideal for this!

We paid our money and booked our seats on the AMARG bus tour which runs from the museum, and made our way into the first hangar. Among the gems in here are an SR-71A Blackbird, the original prototype of North American's F-107A, the Douglas B-18 Bolo, the Martin Mariner, as well as all manner of wierd and wonderful helicopters, including the McCulloch HUM-1.

It was already time for us to head outside to wait for the bus for the AMARG Tour.

When we were done we moved onto the external exhibits, where there is literally something for everyone, with most being in excellent condition!

I had great fun with the 10-22mm lens. It really accentuates the sky colour and I love the distortion. Not everyone's cup of tea though, I concede.

Hangar 4 was next on our tour and featured some real wartime classics - namely a C-46 Commando, a B-29 Superfortress, P-63 King Cobra, as well as a Japanese Oscar - I believe the first example I've come across.

By now we'd been joined by Paul Filmer (Skippy) and he managed to get us access to the storage area where new airframes for the collection were being prepared for display. Undoubtedly the most interesting of those was the B-36 Peacemaker, which we were extremely fortunate to be invited inside!

As amazing as the collection is, I think we were all suffering a little from overkill by the time we got to this stage - in fact on our return to the UK we discovered we'd missed at least one hangar altogether! In an ideal world I think you'd spread your visit over two days.