Fly Free or Die Hard

In one of my earlier blogs I talked about airplane graveyards, where most aircraft in the United States are taken when they are out of commission and are laid to rest in the middle of the desert. Since I got so much positive feedback on the issue I decided to give the readers some more fun facts and information they wouldn’t normally think ever happened in to airplanes.

If you ever asked someone about an airplane graveyard and they understood what you were talking about, they most likely would mention Mojave, California. That is because it is probably the biggest trash site for aircraft in the country and holds more military planes than any other location. Most people have probably seen this place on television without even realizing it, because it is a famous setting for many movies such as Con Air and the TV show JAG. It is also holds the research facility for Spaceship One and is the site where Burt Rutan made the first ever commercial voyage into space.

Mojave holds a plethora of airliners long forgotten, and beneath the sands it holds quite a bit of history of commercial aviation in America. With its location being close to Edwards Air Force Base, Spectators can see an array of rare aircraft. At the main entrance to the graveyard there is an extremely rare Convair 900, and the site also holds some living aircraft such as some of the only F-4 Phantoms left in operation. Sadly, the graveyard itself is fenced off to prevent injuries around the decaying planes, but there is still plenty to see around the area and from the fence. There is also a public airport at the graveyard site and most people would find very strange that an animal shelter is built in the very middle of it.

Throughout the American southwest there are plenty of small aircraft graveyards that seem to pop up out of nowhere. There have been an increasing number of these sites over the past decade mainly blamed on the September 11 attacks and the bankruptcies of almost every US major airline sometime over the past 15 years. Adelanto – Victorville, California and Albuquerque, New Mexico also house deceased airplanes and some places are just abandoned military bases. Whatever the case may be, rest assured eventually the airplane you are flying on will most likely bite the dust.