SEPTEMBER 2019 FLYINGMAG.COM | 45Places to visit include the Cedar Key Museum State
Park, Lil Shark Park, the Cedar Key Pirate Invasion, Shell
Mound campgrounds and Cedar Key Museum State Park.
There are also fishing and boating activities in this north-
west Florida town 80 miles north of Tampa. Life in Cedar
Key is so laid-back you’d never know its 2 square miles was
once the No. 1 producer of commercial clams in Florida.
Certainly great seafood abounds. There are also kayak-
ing and boat rides available and great places to stay, such
as the Island Hotel built in 1859. The CDK Seafood Festival
is held in mid-October.
Just a few things pilots should know before they arrive:
CDK offers no fuel or maintenance. Cellphone service at
the airport is reportedly weak, and there’s no local phone
once you land. Aircraft parking is at the pilot’s risk. Local
taxi drivers often monitor 122.9, but there’s no guarantee.
Cedar Key is active on Facebook and Instagram.
Airplane Boneyards and Desert Aircraft Storage:
Aircraft-history buffs could easily spend a week, or as little
as a day, f lying around in the Arizona desert near Phoenix—
or in Southern California or Roswell, New Mexico— visiting
the multiple aircraft graveyards that house hundreds
of relics of the nation’s air-transportation industry.
Out-of-service aircraft are stored here because the dry
desert climate prevents corrosion.
There are four different sites around Phoenix alone,
so a visit just depends upon where you land. Pilots can
land at Kingman Airport on the north side or Phoenix
Goodyear Airport. Both offer rental cars and nearby
hotels. The largest of all the bone-
yards is at Davis-Monthan AFB near
Tucson, with other sites located at the
Southern California Logistics Center
near Victorville and the Mojave Air
and Space Port north of Los Angeles.
There’s also the Roswell Air Center in
New Mexico.
Phoenix Kingman parks dozens
of airliners from American Eagle,
Continental Express, DHL, SAS and
others with engines, windows and
tires covered for protection from the
elements. Aircraft parked at Kingman
are behind fences, though, and not
accessible to the general public.
Originally constructed during
World War II as a naval air facil-
ity known as NAF Litchfield Park,
GYR was later renamed Naval Air
Station Litchfield Park and then,
finally, Phoenix Goodyear Airport.
The airport is home to several
private aircraft-maintenance and
pilot- training companies, as well as
an active airliner boneyard. Pinal
Airpark just northwest of Tucson is an
active boneyard for civilian commer-
cial aircraft as well as a site for storage
and reconfiguration.Florida’s Cedar
Key Airport is
surrounded by a
National Wildlife
Refuge.