I though all the F14 were shredded to avoid Iran getting spares for its inventory?
You may well be right. I was using “boneyard” generically which was sloppy of me. My point was they’d all been long withdrawn from service before any outside contractors arose that might want to use one.
Whether they were still sitting there looking intact from a distance or had already been chopped up is pretty immaterial. Very, very few ordinary fleet aircraft go into AMARG storage and fly again later. Far more likely a couple parts are cannibalized and the remaining aircraft becomes a slowly rotting hulk until it’s eventually scheduled for destruction.
Typically on any fleet there ends up being some part(s) which fail faster or are harder to resupply than expected. So those parts end up cannibalized out of every example of the breed as it enters AMARG. A side effect of that is you may have 50 of that model baking in the sun, but you can’t cobble together one flyable aircraft from all of them; part number 123-45 is missing from every friggin’ one.
A quick look at both Bing & Google maps “satellite view” shows 5 obvious F-14s sitting amongst the legions of F-15s and F-16s. They’re just south and a little east of the B-1s. The rest of the imagery is subtly different here and there. So they’re not both using the same pic from the same date.
The B-52s will sit there forever under the terms of one of the SALT / START agreements. They’re there, clearly chopped up but all the big pieces neatly arrayed so they can be counted every day by the then-Soviets, now Russians.
The others get the chop and disappear once there’s no plausible need for them. Used to be they needed every available square foot for storage, so the rule was “out with the old to make room for the new.” I bet now, with the shrinking force sizes that space is no longer at a premium and the rush to destroy has abated.
Exsqueeze me if I babble semi-incoherently and interminably here – the adrenalin hasn’t fully worn off yet!
This past weekend was a great soaring day at Byron (small GA airport about 10 miles east of Mt. Diablo). (Not to be confused with Byron Bay glider club, New South Wales.) Cu, cloud streets, thermals galore!
To be sure, the scheduled instructor du jour called in sick and canceled everyone’s lessons both days. Oops. Turned out just fine, as it happened, for the most intrepid among us!
I showed up anyway (Saturday) to help launch the one private pilot who insisted on flying, as did our Field Manager du jour. He made it all the way to Oroville and back, about 7 hours, 520 km. His GPS trace and analysis on OLC, in anyone here is interested. After launching him, the FM, having nothing more to do that day, decided to go flying too. He took the 2-seat Grob G103, N103FB and invited me along for the ride. (No, that’s not us in the pic. The pic is from the club web site.)
We soared around the area for 2½ hours, reaching 4000’ agl several times and about 4800’ agl at one point after nearly giving up at a low of about 1500’ agl, with an ascent rate of about 470 feet/minute, it looks like from our GPS trace. We got fairly close to Mt. Diablo but couldn’t go all the way there because we started running into cloud base, and as far south as I-580 at the Altamont Pass. (Any local Dopers know these places.) The pilot let me try my hand at working some of the thermals, which I did kinda-sorta vaguely passably, I guess. We also took the time to play with doing some fairly aggressive stalls, both of us.
Sunday we had a substitute instructor. Our world-famous (literally!) private pilot launched again for another all-day non-stop flight to somewhere around Bakersfield and back, and I had an hour-long lesson with mostly thermaling practice. (The typical lesson flight is about 20 to 30 minutes.) I think we got up above 5000’ agl this flight too.
Well, I had a real blast this weekend, and got my daily adrenaline fix. I hope there will be a lot more days like these all summer!
Where is this boneyard? To me, “boneyard” means that big dead airplane yard at Mojave.
Okay, I mentioned our pilot who does those epic glider flights. He manages that all the time – he’s got multiple flights over 1000 km!
I just thought I’d post a link to a page from his blog – some highlights from his 2016 flights. He does spectacular photography! Scroll through the page and take a look.
Most pics you can click on to enlarge. And most of those, you can click on again to enlarge even more.
The US military uses Davis-Monthan AFB, just outside Tucson, Arizona.
Here’s more on The Boneyard: 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group - Wikipedia
I just plugged that sucker into Google Maps. Looks like the rest of my day will be wasted just scrolling around…
This didn’t happen. We were supposed to be flying together last night but it all got changed at the last minute after someone called in sick. We are desperately short of crew and one minor problem like that causes the whole house of cards to fall. So we ended up crewing different flights.
Feel free to babble! Sounds you had a great time. Flying as it should be.
As others have said and cited, in mil-speak “the boneyard” (always with the “the”) is at Davis-Monthan.
The airlines’ main boneyards now are at what used to be George AFB in Victorville, CA (Southern California Logistics Airport - Wikipedia) and at Pinal Airpark in Marana AZ (Pinal Airpark - Wikipedia) a bit northwest of Tucson along I-10.
The Mojave airport to the NW of Edwards AFB that you mention (Mojave Air and Space Port - Wikipedia) was one of the first, and is now merely a vestige of its former glory.
There are certainly other aircraft junkyards that store or shred them onesy-twosy. But D-M for the DoD and MZJ, VCV, and MHV for the civilians are the biggies.
Yup. 
And now you have 3 more places to check out. 
You used to be able to find some real rarities at Mojave; C-133s and stuff like that. Sadly they’re no more.
For GA aircraft in particular, the scrapyard at the Griffin, Georgia airport is a little difficult to look at.
The first time I went to Mojave, the first thing I saw was the vertical fin of a 747.
Hard to believe that “Revolutionary! Super Cool!” design is now obsolete…
Too funny** Elendil’s Heir**.
Blimp pilot suffers burns (and survives) after crash near U.S. Open at ERIN, Wis.
“…a couple of panels that gave way on the envelope [of the ship], causing the hot air to pour out…”
Here’s a video of the crash.
Can anyone explain how blimps are examined/maintained regarding structural integrity?
No, but I can speak to hot air balloons as I just went thru an annual two weeks ago; given both are fabric, I’m guessing some similarity.
Inspector talked to the owner/pilot about how it’s flying (this envelope is starting to go porous but not getting any worse). A couple panels are selected for both horizontal & vertical pull tests, where clamps are affixed to the fabric & then pulled to the proscribed limits to ensure the fabric still has structural integrity. A visual inspection is done of each panel in the envelope to ensure no damage or holes.
Finally, the telltale is inspected (& possibly a new one installed) In this case, the telltale had not been activated, meaning the balloon had not been overtemped (good); however, I would think this step would not apply to a blimp.
ETA: Obviously, the above refers to the fabric parts only. Yes the basket, tanks, & burners are also inspected but I would think they are different than a blimp which has directional control.
So that’s why it’s called a runway.
I remember when you could go to MHV and just walk around looking at airplanes.
Update: It was more of a hybrid hot-air ship than a true blimp; therefore, a lot of what I said about a balloon annual probably does apply.
A new Canadian Spitfire takes to the air for the first time: http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/593/The-First-Flight-of-the-Roseland-Spitfire-IX.aspx
That also helps explain how it got hot enough to catch fire.