What is the AMARC inventory?

Quite simply it is a list of the aircraft stored at AMARC.

Currently AMARC is responsible for the storage and maintenance of over 4,000 aircraft. These aircraft all have identifying serial numbers or registrations that uniquely identified them when they were operational. When they arrive at AMARC they are allocated an 8 digit inventory number which incorporates information which is specifically required by the systems and processes which operate on the base. The list of these inventory numbers, along with the type of aircraft, date of arrival and current location at AMARC all go to make up the inventory that is referred to regularly on this web site.

At the end of 1997 AMARC began to make available the inventory from their web site under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Since then the inventory has been updated on a regular/not-so regular basis, ranging from daily to monthly updates, each update consisting of a 'snapshot' at that particular moment of time. Of course, as soon as that snapshot is taken it could well be out of date by the arrival, departure or movement of aircraft at AMARC but everyone must agree it is a tremendous resource to have access to.

In the past there have been some aircraft that were listed on the inventory that were not present at AMARC but this is now not the case. There are also some aircraft present at AMARC that are NOT listed on the inventory, a list of these can be found by clicking here.

   


The FOIA Listing

Below is a snapshot of part of the FOIA listing from Monday April 16th 2001.


The top five lines are duplicated on each page as a page 'header', this is followed by a list of up to 51 aircraft per page. The listing is sorted into aircraft type order, within each aircraft type the records are listed by inventory number.

From left to right the columns of the listing supply the following information:

Column No.Column NameDescription
1. Number AMARC inventory number
2. Location Last recorded location at AMARC
3. Tail Number Serial number/registration. This can sometimes, although not very often, be a serial number 'devised' for AMARC use only.
4. Arrival Date Date of arrival at AMARC, format 'dd-mmm-yy'
5. MDS Standing for 'Mission Design Series' this is an AMARC short description of the aircraft type. A listing of these can be found by clicking here



Inventory Numbers

Every aircraft that arrives at AMARC for storage or maintenance has an inventory number allocated to it, the aircraft to be stored have their number stencilled onto the airframe at their time of arrival. The aircraft that pass through AMARC for maintenance only generally do not have the number painted on them due to their relatively short stay, examples of these are the A-10 Thunderbolts that have been passing through AMARC recently for GPS system upgrades.

AMARC Inventory numbers consist of 8 characters and these are broken down into 4 sections, see below:


The first character signifies the type of equipment the item consists of, currently inventory numbers for aerospace vehicles always start with an 'A'.

The second character specifies the branch of the military to which the aircraft is assigned, the list to the right details the designators currently in use:
  • A - Air Force
  • C - Coast Guard
  • H - Army
  • N - Navy
  • X - Other US Agencies
  • Y - Foreign (this currently only applies to two aircraft, two German Tornado's).
The third section of the inventory number consists of a two letter aircraft type designator. US Navy and Marines aircraft types have number/alpha formatted designators, for example 1K, 3A, 6A, etc., The second character of the Navy designators generally describes the type of mission the aircraft type fulfills. See the list to the right for some of the most common mission designators:
  • A - Attack
  • B - Bomber
  • C - Cargo
  • F - Fighters
  • H - Helicopters
  • P - Patrol
  • T - Trainers
The Air Force and Army types have alpha/alpha designators, for example TF, FE, HV. The first character of the Air Force and Army designators generally describes the type of mission the aircraft type fulfills. See the list to the right for some of the most common mission designators:
  • A - Attack (Air Force)
  • B - Bomber (Air Force)
  • C - Cargo (Air Force)
  • D - Drone (Air Force)
  • F - Fighters (Air Force)
  • H - Helicopters (Air Force)
  • T - Trainers (Air Force)
  • X - Helicopters (Army)
  • Z - Cargo & Trainers (Army)

Over the years aircraft type designators can be re-used to identify different aircraft types, this is due to the limited combinations available. This, however, was a more common practice in the earlier years due to the greater number of aircraft types that passed through the center.

The third and last section consists of a 4-digit number that is sequentially allocated to each new arrival of that specfic aircraft type. This is the section that will give each aircraft its unique AMARC identification as numbers are not re-used. However, if an aircraft leaves AMARC and returns in the future it will be allocated a new inventory number.


When Can I Find The Listing?

The AMARC FOIA listing can be accessed at http://www.dm.af.mil/amarc/inventory.htm

Alternatively the information from the latest inventory can found at this web site, where some of the work of sorting, translating the MDS and location codes and summarizing has been done for you.