# ID this plane at the Davis-Monthan graveyard

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-plane-at-the-davis-monthan-graveyard/346115>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 25, 2006, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-plane-at-the-davis-monthan-graveyard/346115 "2006-02-25T23:09:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-plane-at-the-davis-monthan-graveyard/346115/1 "2006-02-25T23:09:43Z")

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In this [Google Maps image](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Davis-Monthan+Air+Force+Base&ll=32.161422,-110.835566&spn=0.001197,0.00339&t=k), what are the 3 aircraft in the center of the image with the huge wings?

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**Author:** ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-plane-at-the-davis-monthan-graveyard/346115/2 "2006-02-25T23:13:37Z")

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Oh, and in addition, if you look at the [eastern part of the yard](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Davis-Monthan+Air+Force+Base&t=k&ll=32.158974,-110.817225&spn=0.004787,0.013561&t=k), there’s quite a bit of, stuff, sorted out. What is all that stuff?

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-plane-at-the-davis-monthan-graveyard/346115/3 "2006-02-25T23:14:18Z")

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Those are WB-57s. Hit google images with [WB-57] for lots more good photos.

The aircraft is a high-altitude modification to the basic B-57, of which you can see 4 examples off to the left of your 3 WB-57s.

SOme additional googling will tell you allabout their mission doing high altitude weather reasearch as wellas nuclear testing monitoring.

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**Author:** ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-plane-at-the-davis-monthan-graveyard/346115/4 "2006-02-25T23:21:47Z")

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Wow - quite the quick response. Thanks! I never heard of that plane before now. That’s also quite the modification with respect to the wings.

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**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-plane-at-the-davis-monthan-graveyard/346115/5 "2006-02-26T00:44:45Z")

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> [@Scruloose](#):
>
> Oh, and in addition, if you look at the [eastern part of the yard](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Davis-Monthan+Air+Force+Base&t=k&ll=32.158974,-110.817225&spn=0.004787,0.013561&t=k), there’s quite a bit of, stuff, sorted out. What is all that stuff?

According to Google Earth, much of it is the equipment that was used to manufacture the B-1.