The Pima Air & Space Museum is a 127-acre complex housing nearly 300 aircraft from around the world. This museum has gained renown as one of the largest aerospace museums to operate without government funding. Located east of the Tucson Airport on E Valencia Rd., our drivers often catch a glimpse of the museum’s gleaming aircraft on their way to and from our many Tucson-area deliveries.
The Museum’s Main Collection
The Pima Air & Space Museum maintains five separate hangars, as well as a Space Gallery and aircraft restoration facility. A separate museum, the 390th Memorial Museum, also sits on the Pima Air & Space Museum’s grounds. Each hangar highlights a unique ideal or era in flight history, such as the European and Asian theaters of war during World War II. The Spirit of Freedom Hangar, which greets guests as they enter the museum, takes visitors on a journey from the Wright Brothers’ first designs to the latest modern aerospace innovations. While a significant number of aircraft are kept indoors in each hangar, a large portion of the museum’s collection is kept outside on the complex’s vast grounds, where visitors can walk or take a tram tour to explore these planes.
Additional Exhibits
In addition to the aircraft themselves, the Pima Air & Space Museum also keeps several aircraft and flight-related artifacts on display. Among these exhibits are engine cutaways, flight patches, aircraft nose art, and an extensive model aircraft collection inside a decommissioned WWII barracks. The 390th Memorial Museum maintains its own Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, as well as several exhibits highlighting the equipment used on these aircraft and the bombing runs completed over Europe during the war.
This article is part of Xcel Delivery’s ongoing blog series, Arizona’s Amazing Roadside Attractions.
