Pima Air & Space Museum
Museum · Tucson · Tucson & the Sky Islands
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Nearly 400 aircraft spread across 80 acres, one of the largest aerospace museums in the world. The Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame has been housed here since 1991.
The museum grew out of the boneyard next door. In the 1960s, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base began setting aside historic World War II aircraft instead of sending them to the scrapper, and people could already see them lined up through the base fence before anyone built a museum around them. Colonel I. R. Perkin and the Tucson chapter of the Air Force Association founded the Tucson Air Museum Foundation of Pima County in 1966 to put them on public display, and Representative Morris Udall handed over the land on the Bureau of Land Management's behalf in 1968. It opened to the public in 1976 with 48 aircraft; that number has grown to nearly 400 since. The museum added "Space" to its name in 1992 as its focus widened, and it is now home to NASA's retired SOFIA flying observatory, a modified 747 built to carry a telescope above the clouds.
What you see
Rows of retired airliners, cargo haulers and bombers sit wingtip to wingtip across open desert lots, with a giant B-52 and the boxy hump of a Super Guppy cargo plane towering over the tram route.
Practical
- Hours
- open daily
Hours per OpenStreetMap, may be outdated.
aviationmilitary historyspacemuseum
Cafés nearby
Climbs, views & nature nearby
History & landmarks nearby
Climbs nearby
Common questions
- Why stop at Pima Air & Space Museum on a bike ride?
- Nearly 400 aircraft spread across 80 acres, one of the largest aerospace museums in the world. The Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame has been housed here since 1991.
- Where is Pima Air & Space Museum?
- Pima Air & Space Museum is in Tucson, Tucson & the Sky Islands (Arizona, United States).