QuoteThe Mojave Desert’s Airplane Graveyard
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The first thing to know is that the Mojave Air and Spaceport, as it’s officially known, isn’t just a graveyard for inactive planes. It’s an active airport, home to one of the nation’s only civilian test pilot schools, and most famously the place where Space Ship One was developed and performed the first privately-funded human spaceflight in 2004. But it also functions as a giant parking lot for hundreds of jets owned by dozens of different entities, from major airlines to private individuals. If an airline doesn’t anticipate needing some of its planes for an extended period of time, it’s much cheaper for them to park those planes in the desert and have maintenance crews check them out once every few weeks than to keep them active.
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View all the photos:
http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/33186.html
I got into this guy's photography awhile back:
http://www.lostamerica.com/aircraft/index.html
He takes night photos of the same airplane graveyard in the Mojave. Uses a lot of time lapse and filtered lights, interesting stuff.
Davis Montham(I think I spelled it correctly) is not too far from there.............thats where all the old military iron goes and its huge! Did some Tower verification work for Sprint around that place and it's row after row of stuff dating back to 1950's!
Has anyone ever checked out the airplane boneyard off U.S 1 just north of St. Augustine? I believe there's some WWII era bombers there. I"ll have to dig up some old pictures.
David...........those are called S-2 Trackers. They were the primary submarine detection aircraft for the Navy for many years...........I believe there are a couple of South American Air Forces still using them and from the looks of those there, parts are missing so they are being cannablized to keep flying ones in the air. The Library may have more on the last piston powered aircraft the Navy had or do a web search!
The E-2 Hawkeye (AWAC) is a turbo-prop plane, but I'm not sure if the Navy still flys them.I have seen more of those than the newer E-3 jets around Jax.
While I was job hunting at Cecil,I saw one parked behind the FSCJ aviation facility...complete with Homeland security logo on it.
Quote from: CS Foltz on November 17, 2009, 05:55:41 AM
David...........those are called S-2 Trackers. They were the primary submarine detection aircraft for the Navy for many years...........I believe there are a couple of South American Air Forces still using them and from the looks of those there, parts are missing so they are being cannablized to keep flying ones in the air. The Library may have more on the last piston powered aircraft the Navy had or do a web search!
Very cool. I probably shouldn't have tried to guess the era they were from or their function, but I knew they weren't remotely modern. wiki says they were in use from the mid 1950's - 1970's. So a little later than WWII. Either way my imagination went wild when I came across them, interesting stuff!
You want an airplane graveyard look out the window when you land in Managua. Not that it is a bad airport it had a very nice terminal. The old planes were just left off the sides of the runway.
JeffreyS not quite the same thing.............Arizona dry air and lack of humidity preserves anything that either flew or was trucked in......right down to seals if they are pickled correctly! Managua is too humid and too hot for aluminum aircraft to survive for long. Back in the 80's got to overhaul some F4U-R's that had belonged to the Costa Rican Air Force and those birds had to be stripped down to the bones and rebuilt......but damn talk about something with a prop that flat move out! Those were state of the art in their day. Ernest still using E-2's as far as I know.......Northrup/Grumman just came out with a Super E-2 version.......still turbo prop but with Dowty Rotal 5 bladed props(that does not look right for some reason) and more computer strength and upgraded avionics......not sure if the Navy will be going with those or something else but those are one of many options!