From the moment you cross into the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Tucson’s Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the desert looks like it’s been overrun by aluminum. Aircraft stretch to every horizon—jets, transporters, helicopters, shapes both familiar and forgotten—lined with geometric precision in the sun-bleached earth.
It feels, at first glance, like an enormous scrapyard.
But that perception evaporates as soon as you meet the people who run the massive facility, known more simply as “The Boneyard.”…