AMARG marks 78 Years on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — They call themselves America’s “airpower reservoir”.

The Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, known as “AMARG," turned 78 years old this April.

First established on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base after WWII, operations today continue around the clock, as Tucson was chosen as the home for AMARG due to its low humidity and hard soil.

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Today the group takes care of over 3,000 aircraft on over 2,000 acres of land.

“People drive by and see all the aircraft parked out here, but that’s just a small piece of what we do," Deputy Director Gary Hubbard said.

There’s nothing small about AMARG however as they use over four square miles of land.

Their duties include maintenance and repair, reclamation and shipment of aircraft parts, and putting on the white stuff you see all over the planes.

“We call it 'spray-lat', so spray latex. That seals the aircraft up," Hubbard said. "It keeps us within 10 degrees of ambient temperature and protects them from the environment.”

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If an aircraft no longer needs to be restored, or its valuable parts have all been stripped off, then AMARG begins the disposal process.

"They end up going through like a hammer mill, and they get broken down into pieces about that big," Hubbard said.

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78 years into the mission, AMARG services aircraft for everyone from the Air Force to NASA, and our allies overseas.

But Hubbard says the real power of AMARG is its people, ready for 78 more years of work.

“Think about it, in a year, we can get 50 different types of aircraft come in, and these people know how to work on each and every one of these aircraft,” Hubbard said. “I am amazed about the skills every one of these people have and I know I don’t get the mission done without them.”