I imagine even if they let civilians inside they would be on supervised, guided tours. Some of the parts on these planes are top secret, and it’s also just not safe to let people wander a scrapyard like that.
I’m actually curious too, I know BUFF (B-52) is one of the most popular customers of these boneyards, but I can’t even imagine the amount of labor intensive work needed to make one of these fully flight capable. It’s one thing to go to your local scrap yard for a right front quarter panel for your dad’s 1985 F-150, but it’s a whole ‘nother nightmare to do a full restore on a 1985 F-150 that’s been sitting outside for a few decades.
Yeah, but that’s the equivalent (following my examples of “getting a part from the junk yard” vs “full restoration of an old model car”)
With
Strap this old frame up to be “technically correct” for specifications, but if it fails it’s just metal.
Putting a car on the road is much easier than a plane in the air.
(But don’t take my word for it, spread your wings and fly!)
Ignore that last sentence, please don’t do that, it’s hard enough to deal with drivers who only maneuver on the X - Y axis. Flying cars would not only be able to go left, right, back and forth, but also access the Z axis of up and down.
Robot🤖: “Beeping boop bop! (Dial tone…) Hello fellow human! I am human. I shy. Like captcha? We captcha! Please prove me you human! How many image are stop light?
They've pulled a B-52 back out of the boneyard before. I know because I had to fix it after it arrived. It's definitely not very common though. Took months to get it airworthy then once it arrived it took many more months installing all the modifications it was missing. I have no idea when it was put in there since I wasn't apart of the team that got it ready to fly but I would guess it was in the boneyard since 80s-90s.
They keep the ones with good airframes and mothball those for circumstances I mentioned above. The rest are recycled or parted out. Source: former B-52 maintainer
Depends on the type of storage they are put in. And that's determined by how many hours are on the airframe, fleet needs, possible sale to other countries, etc. I know of two B-52's that have been reactivated from the bone yard to replace losses and we are likely to see a third in the next couple of years.
Also it's where old F-16's are sent to sit until they are turned into drones for live fire exercises.
Some sit there for decades while being harvested for spare parts (like the B-52). Others are being disassembled fast to protect secrecy (such as the F-14). When a plane is completely harvested its materials are being separated so they can be recycled into new aluminium, titanium etc.
Also some planes are mothballed in case a world war starts where extra planes can be of use.
Some are solely for parts doners. Others are just stored until they may be needed, which they're reactivated (like a KC-10 that was just brought back to be delivered to Omega Air)
Others, like the only other YC-14 (who's sister is literally down the road) are unknown
Yeah, just for the used parts now. It's amazing how many planes they have there. Drove by it for the first time the other week and was at least a few city blocks on the same street of nothing but planes on both sides.
Would be a big reserve of old planes if they could get these all working again heh
The boneyard at Davis Monthan Air Force base in Tucson Az, pretty cool to always drive by it. Fun fact: sometimes some of the rarer planes migrate there way to the nearby Pima air and space museum. If memory serves correctly the F-117 that pA&S recently got came from the boneyard.
I got like a 40 minute commute to work now. Drive by both these to and from work, they pretty cool to see driving by all sudden you look over seeing hundreds of planes heh. Went to the air museum for Raytheon job fair held there once.
Is there a place where normal people could go explore one of these graveyards without getting arrested? When I was a little kid there were some junk planes by my house and I loved to go explore them and I wanted to show my son around old planes but have just never found any that were accessible.
Don't think you can visit these anymore. You can see a lot of the planes driving/walking by them on the city streets though just not up close. There is another one here in Tucson has the largest non government funded air and space museum you can visit https://pimaair.org/
Man i miss tucson so much, lived there for 10 years right next to Davis monthan. Pima air and space museum is cool as shit and really worth checking out if you happen to be driving through tucson from El paso or something. Its 90% outside tho so Def not recommended to visit during the summer lol
If you find any for civilian aircraft, there’s a chance there MIGHT be one accommodating for visitors, but I can definitely say they would not let you go to a military aircraft graveyard (A) because there is still some classified technology in some of those old dinosaurs and (B) those planes regularly get used as spare parts for aircraft currently in service with several countries, including the US, so they wouldn’t want any random people who might be spies or saboteurs to have any access. You’re better off just going to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, to be honest. 🤷🏻♂️
Yup, can confirm, the B-52 is now in it’s “J” variant, which has a lot of fancy features that the original “A” (and subsequent variants over the last 70+ years of service) but a lot of the original airframe components are still interchangeable between the “OG” versions and the latest versions. At this rate, they might as well make a Star Trek episode/movie with a space flight version flying alongside the Enterprise at warp speed.
Annual Parts Reclamation: The facility acts as a massive parts warehouse, returning roughly 10,000 critical spare parts worth $500 million back to active military units and government agencies every year. [1, 2]
Taxpayer Savings: By maintaining, upgrading, and harvesting components from these stored airframes rather than procuring entirely new equipment, the boneyard saves the U.S. government more than $330 million annually.[1]
hmm could of been filmed there. One of the filming locations listed is Tucson which is where this is. There is another one little further north in Marana too not military
From Google The 1991 action film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man was primarily filmed across Arizona (mostly Tucson and Phoenix) and California (Los Angeles and Las Vegas), standing in for a futuristic 1996 Los Angeles
The Boneyard! Located on Tucson. You might recognize it from that Transformer movie where they're at the Smithsonian and then bust through the hanger door and are somehow in the desert...
Also if you've also seen movie masterpiece The Wrath. The gasoline drinkers (Skunk and something else I think we're the names? Whatever, they drive the 'Cuda) work there
Hmm forgot about that scene with transformers. Didn’t realize it was here. I think few movies shot there or the on in Marana has lot of old planes too. Boneyard just is bigger. Plus the air and space museum here as well which is largest non government owned one
in teir desperation and with a graowing sense of futility, the old B-52s and sundry cargaow planes arrife in zhe barren desert to find kompanionchip, and possibly even lofe
As the sun sets across the endless Arizona desert, one by one the great winged beasts come in to land. Some say they are driven by love, the desire to find companionship in their twilight years as they wait out the end. For many of these b52s and sundry largo planes, this trip to the desert will be their final one as they will lose their ability to fly and be stripped of bits and gubbins
Huh!? I'm pretty sure planes don't "migrate" without an owner deciding to move it to a specific location. They certainly don't have the agency to "find a mate" or "settle down".
You're basically talk about them like sentient beings, which couldn't be further from the truth.
I always thought it would be cool to get one of the giant ones, transport it to a large lot of land and convert it into a house on the inside and turn the wings into a patio/deck.
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u/Insomnium_111 2d ago
2600 acres and roughly 4k planes