The world’s largest airplanes graveyard of US military fighters in the desert can now is explored online in the incredible interactive map. The world’s largest “plane graveyard” where more than 4,400 aircraft are dumbed in dust in the Arizona desert can now be explored in intricate detail. This is the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, commonly known as The Boneyard.
Where the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) take care of disused fighter jets and warplanes. AMARG arranges its aircraft over almost 2,600 acres of desert in the city of Tucson, surrounded by houses and crisscrossed by roads. AMARG was established at Davis-Monthan to store planes in 1946 after the end of the Second World War, chosen for Tucson’s low humidity, infrequent rainfall, high altitude, and hard alkaline soil.
The place has been inquisitiveness for eagle-eyed Google Earth users since the satellite imagery software was launched in 2005, but now for the first time, it is available to view in high resolution. The $35billion worth of outdated planes are kept as spare parts for current models at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.
The US military planes of all shapes and sizes lined up in meticulous rows on the reddish earth with decommissioned fighters coated in protective sheeting and well-covered in white to protect them from the scorching sun. So, it is home to everything from massive cargo planes to bombers, Hercules freighters, A10 Thunderbolts and the F-14 Tomcat fighters made famed in Top Gun. Thus, they were stored with their wings detached and placed on the ground to prove to Soviet satellites they had been taken out of service.
However, many planes are from the Cold War in Vietnam including retired B-52 bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Moreover, as long as aircraft fly, military and commercial aircraft boneyards are required to keep other planes in the air and usually perform a variety of functions from storing aircraft.
These are for the time being out of service but likely to return to the fleet, to recouping useable parts which are checked, repaired, and then held until needed by active aircraft, to dismantling of the aircraft carcasses. Besides, some of the planes have noses or wings missing, surrounded by indifferent parts being salvaged by laborers to be sent out to air bases across the world as spares.
So, others are wrapped up and almost ready to go, being kept as close to working order as possible in case they are required in a new operation. When they arrive, they must be washed, their fuel tanks drained and cleaned, ammunition and ejector seats removed and ducts sealed before they’re covered back up. It has been the atmospheric backdrop for numerous films, television series, and videos.
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