The Airplane Graveyard in Arizona | Hacker News Reader

The Airplane Graveyard in Arizona

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27 pointsbluedevil2k15 comments

http://www.desertusa.com/mag06/apr/airplane.html

Information about the Boneyard.

The dry desert serves as a great location to store planes for a long time, either for future use or for spare parts.

Watched a documentary on it today - the dry heat is good for everything BUT the electronics. So, they spray a black rubber seal around planes with complicated electronics (that can be used in the future), and then spray that rubber seal white to keep the temperature lower. When the parts are needed, or the plane needs to fly again, they just peel it off.

I've flown MD 88's that had been storaged like that. Wow they failed so often! once they had pass the initial maintenance and start flying, you still have to change docens of electronic parts ( like sensors, switches, or computers!) along the months, because they fail so badly. I don't know if that particular planes suffered a specially bad storage but they were a pain to fly...

I had to visit Area 51 after seeing this.

I saw some jets on the ground for the first time. Except they don't look real. They look like the same image repeated.

http://i.imgur.com/Phk7M.jpg

These are F-16, there's nearly 5000 of them worlwide and the US happens to have most of them. These 4 just happen to be parked next to each other and belonging to armed forces it's not surprising that they're parked in a very similar way. Note that there is slight differences in the placement of items around them.

Just because it's Area 51 doesn't mean there's a conspiracy everywhere...

I know what they are, I also never said there was a conspiracy. But Google has, in the past, done weird things with US military bases and elsewhere. Replacing entire areas, repeating patterns, generally obscuring things.

Looking at the picture further, I think that those planes are on rails, which is what those lines on the ground are. Which would explain why they're all parked so perfectly.

Massive one in the UK too: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253068/Massive-22bi...

If you read the first sentence of the article you linked to, you'll see its in the US, not the UK the same one that's the subject of the current discussion. The UK climate would not lend itself to long term storage of aircraft.

I've driven by here many times, very eerie, completely empty of people or activity of any kind. If you look closely there's a few 747's and everything.

What a waste of resources. Do they at least recycle them?

This is the "309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Recycling and reclaimation is what they do:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/309th_Aerospace_Maintenance_and...

I believe that they use them the same way as a car junk yard, for spare parts...

Inside a different one: http://www.silentuk.com/?p=3374#more-3374

The Pima Air and Space Museum across the street is awesome. Highly recommend a visit if you get the opportunity.

I thought it was in the middle of the desert somewhere, not in a suburb

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