Out and about – The Boneyard…

Cestrian, thanks for putting up those yard pics. For some reason, they are often forgotten in the reports on AMARC that occasionally cross my eyes, even though there is plenty of stuff around. Especially for piston-people.

Jasop, if you’re interested in WW2 stuff being stored and scrapped, you should google a bit for Walnut Ridge. That place has probably seen the largest aircraft-scrapping in history, some 10.000 aircraft in all between 1946 and 1948. Not a pretty sight.

Ive always found the boneyard interesting. Ive seen a few pics of all that ww2 heavy metal sat out there after the war. Very sad but amazing sight.

Can anyone recomend any good books (idealy with lots of pics) about the boneyard back then or any websites as i would love to see more images of all those 17s & 24s

🙂 thanks

A few shots from the yards adjoining AMARC June 2002 showing the variety of aircraft than can still be seen.
1 Ex Canadian Beech C-45 being towed across the road between yards
2 T-28 140575
3 TS-2A Tracker 133201
4 E-1B Tracer 148137
5 US-2D Tracker 147876
6 A 50 year-old C-130A with the original ‘Roman’ nose 53-3133
7 C47H(C-117) 17150
8 P-2H Neptune 148343

I will post some more of Western’s Yard tomorrow if anyone is interested.

…and there was me thinking they were ‘sitting in the desert fading and rusting’. 🙂

Mark

Now, that was me, Mark and I’m sure your well aware of that 😉 but thats only 20% what about the other 80%? And yes, things do rust out here….

Some are held as war reserve, apparently. Some are held for later use with museums.
Some will just sit there for many years.

Flood

Not just war reserve…sometimes a service will buy X number of planes, needing only 90% of them at the present time and store the rest here until they’re needed. (War or attrition replacements, or waiting until a new USCG or USN ship is finished, etc..)That’s why you occasionally see nearly new AC there.

And with the reduction of military forces in the 90s, they stored excess numbers there and they’ll be “swapped out” with others of its type still in service to “even out” the airframe hours. (As an example, when the A-10s were pulled from the UK, that meant there were suddenly an extra six squadrons available…that gives planners a chance to manage the fleet a bit better).

The planes that sit for years are the ones that conceiveably might come in handy one day. For 20+ years there were hundreds of early model B-52s there…but until the arms control treaty with the Russians came up, nobody seemed to be in a big hurry to scrap them. One obvious reason is that they were used for parts…at a B-52 unit I was assigned to, the maintence officers seemed to know exactly what parts from the B-F models would…and wouldn’t…work on the G’s still in service.

On the B-1s, the AF wanted to go from 93…to 60. Ten early AC were sent to museums…the other 23 went to AMARC. (These numbers a bit hazy, as recently as September, Dyess public affairs couldn’t …or wouldn’t…tell me how many planes the base was assigned when I did a story on this subject). The AF appearently then decided that 60 was a bare minimum needed and left no margin for attrition. Meanwhile, some members of congress weren’t too happy about cutting the largest segment of the bomber fleet by1/3 in a time of war, and told the AF to return 17 or so to service. So very few of the Lancers will be used for parts. BTW, the planes chosen for retirement were early models…appearently the first of the 100 B modles were “hand built” and had considerable differences from the later AC. Also, being older, they had more airframe hours and some had not rceived the later service upgrades to avionics and defensive sytems.

Also, some of the planes with potential commercial use are kept for museum trades..back when firefighting outfits still had B-17s, the AF would trade them C-118 (DC-6s), Neptunes, P-3s, C-130As, for historic AC. I hope that happens with some of the old stuff (C-82, C-119s, c-97s) that Hawkins & Powers has for sale. Give them some relatively modern P-3s in trade, seems logical…but there’s been a crackdown on trades for a variety of reasons.

About 20% (I forget the right figure) of the airframes are eventually returned to service.
The ‘bagged’ Phantoms will be going to the drone programme. The B1s and other in-service types are held to provide spares for their still flying kin. Some are for sale or placement with other national air forces. Some are held as war reserve, apparently. Some are held for later use with museums.
Some will just sit there for many years.

Flood

…and there was me thinking they were ‘sitting in the desert fading and rusting’. 🙂

Mark

About 20% (I forget the right figure) of the airframes are eventually returned to service.
The ‘bagged’ Phantoms will be going to the drone programme. The B1s and other in-service types are held to provide spares for their still flying kin. Some are for sale or placement with other national air forces. Some are held as war reserve, apparently. Some are held for later use with museums.
Some will just sit there for many years.

Flood

Interesting photos guys.

What exactly is the destiny of these aircraft? Are they ALL awaiting eventual scrapping? Or are some likely to go back into service? Or perhaps be sold to other Air Forces? I’m not entirely sure how it works.

There’s a lot of stuff there more modern than what our Air Force flies today.

And regarding the Pakistani F16’s you mention Flood, is that the ones that were bought by New Zealand for the RNZAF, and then given back by the incoming Government? I’ve often wondered what happened to them.

Ta Muchly for that!!

I’ll cherish these. Once we sort things out [matters like title transfer, sponsorship; minor details NOT!! :confused: ], we’ll bring one down here. A significant type in Oz history being used [that’s CV-240/340/440] by both airlines and RAAF. Must find out the s/n of our “marked” item.

Cheers and thanks again! 😉

Feather,
Four shots of some of the C-131s taken a couple of years ago.
1 42891 VC-131D Happy Hooligans
2 VC-131D Montana-Big Country
3 42814 VC-131D
4 72552 C-131E

Don’t happen to have a shot of the C-131D’s [Convair 340] just across the freeway on the right, do you? I was unable to get a clear shot while there and would like one as an update….one day??

G’day 😉

Will any F-14’s be kept flying when they reach retirement? As a young lad, watching the start of Top Gun, the calm music, people walking across the deck of the carrier, until an F-14 winds on full power before being launched off deck, and the music changes…. Watch the start, you’ll know what I mean. What a beautiful aircraft! The view from the rear 3/4 with afterburners ablaze…. A truly beautiful sight. Have any ever been to RIAT? If not, WHY NOT?

Kind of a sad thread if you ask me, so much precious metal just rotting away….and to think when the USS Carl Vinson returns from her current deployment, her F-14’s will join these pictured and be the last F-14’s to have flown with an active Naval squadron…

Fascinating but sad photos….I’d like to visit the place someday.

Mark

Mark,

Wow thats just to wierd the last West Coast A-6 Squadron VA-96 Fist of the Fleet was assign to the Carl Vinson now the last West Coast F-14 Squadron.

RER

Yes please Cestrian.

Kind of a sad thread if you ask me, so much precious metal just rotting away….and to think when the USS Carl Vinson returns from her current deployment, her F-14’s will join these pictured and be the last F-14’s to have flown with an active Naval squadron…

Fascinating but sad photos….I’d like to visit the place someday.

Mark

Didn’t think there were any Invaders left, surely they went to be firebombers years ago. Ah well…
Flood

The B-26K (later A-26A) rebuilt Invaders…the ones with the three colour camo and tip tanks…that weren’t lost or transferred to the SVNAF (same thing :dev2: ) went to AMARC after being withdrawn from Vietnam in 1969.

None were converted into firebombers, though I believe one did end up with a Denny Lynch in Montana (he’s the guy who provided the Invaders for the film “Always”). A few “Ks” went to various museums, two or three went onto the civil register, the rest (11 according to Scott Thompson’s new book “Douglas A-26 and B-16 Invader”) were sold for scrap.

It’s interesting to learn that some are still in the scrapyards.
With all the Invader parts out there…potential rebuild projects perhaps.

If anyone is interested ,I can post a few photos taken 2 years ago in the yard?

The yard where the Caribous are is Western International.They don’t normally scrap aircraft, but restore and store aircraft for other operators.

Guess that makes it a Caribou or two. Didn’t think there were any Invaders left, surely they went to be firebombers years ago. Ah well…
And a check on that AMARC site comfirms that Pima did in fact get a genuine Vomit Comet via here.
Arthur – coulld have sworn I saw a picture, many years ago (early 80s?) of two Iranian Tomcats sitting side by side with a bunch of…some retired birds I couldn’t identify but they were preserved and the Tomcats weren’t – since it was thought that they might eventually get shipped out to Iran, I think, and maybe the idea was to ship a wreck rather than a fighting machine?
J Boyle – one guy made the mistake of mentioning that he used to pilot C141s to the guide; was informed that they were all on site but not for long… Whenever they were mentioned the guide asked this chap if he wanted to make any comment. Very cruel, I felt.
Benyboy – the dollar/sterling exchange rate is good: too good in fact; go before something happens is my advice.

Flood

That yard is Dross Metals? There are lots and lots aircraft to be found at the scrapdealers around AMARC as well, and they used to have quite a few of oldies that hardly remained at AMARC proper. When there were only few HU-16s, Trackers and the like remaining at AMARC, there were still plenty in the yards around.

As for the Iranian Tomcats: there only ever was one embargoed, and this was one used for IIAF tests in the USA. The other 79 (the order was for 80 Tomcats) were already delivered by the time of the coup. I’m not sure if the one that did remain in the US ever went to AMARC, but it was stored for some time before it went to fly with the Pacific Missile Test Centre at Point Mugu which modified it into an NF-14A. This F-14 was retired to AMARC in 2000, but it later went to the depot at North Island where it´s probably scrapped for spares. Oh, it’s serial is 160378 (sorry, forgot to mention that).