This Scrapyard Contains the World’s Second-Largest Air Force

[n2doc]

The United States currently boasts 5,448 active aircraft, giving it the world's largest air force by far. Russia comes in second with what is generally estimated to be a bit less than half that number, but that's still fewer planes than America has stashed in its maintenance and regeneration facility. I visited what is affectionately known as "the Boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, to see what amounts to the world's second-largest air force.

"We have around 4,000 aircraft here," Public Affairs Officer Teresa Pittman told me, "though that number changes every day."

The Boneyard emerged after World War II as the stash spot for a massive surplus of planes. Some of them have been baking in the Arizona desert for over half a century. The perfect climate, as well as the dedicated work of the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, keeps most of them in—or somewhere close to—flying condition. Now, in the wake of military withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Boneyard is again crowded with aircraft waiting to be scrapped, mothballed, used for parts, turned into museum pieces, or sold to foreign allies.

more
http://www.vice.com/read/this-scrapyard-contains-the-worlds-second-largest-air-force-408

[hunter]

1. Yet somehow we have homeless and hungry people in the U.S.A....

... even little kids.

[KG]

2. let's all stand up and salute abject waste

[MisterP]

14. it's very "functional" for the MIC: hey, they perfected cost-plus accounting and the saying

"if it doesn't work, it's because SOMEONE ELSE lacked vision and didn't give us QUITE enough dinero"

we taxpayers didn't even get the "peace dividend": they fired tens of thousands of workers after the USSR caved and yet kept the same contracts! and then they blamed wimminfolk and violin classes and reading literature in schools for "America not respecting science no more"

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I've taken a tour of Davis-Monthan. Lived in Tucson 1982-1986.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

4. The Boneyard is no 'air force'. It's no force at all. It's just junk. nt

[JayhawkSD]

9. Precisely. Thank you for making the point. nt

[Initech]

5. The monument to the wasteful government spending spree known as the military industrial complex.

[trotsky]

8. But don't you dare call it welfare.

Even though that's exactly what it amounts to.

[Initech]

12. I call it "wasteful government spending". They hate that.

They don't want to admit their side is the guilty party in that either. Even though they're the ones who are committing it.

[JayhawkSD]

10. It is operated at a very considerable profit to the taxpayer.

It disassembles those aircraft and sells parts and scrap metal. It also refurbishes and sells aircraft all over the world. And bear in mind that it receives the aircraft for free.

[onethatcares]

16. it receives the aircraft for free

after taxpayers have sunk billions into designing, manufacturing, and flying them and one day we will see F35s in that junkyard too.

there is no such thing as "free" when it comes to military hardware, front door or back door. someone is farking the taxpayer.

Could I ask where you got your "considerable profit" figures? I just want to see for myself how much I made in aluminum cans last year.

thanks.

[JayhawkSD]

20. Well, they are free to the operation.

Yes, the taxpayer paid for many of them, but most of them were in service for many years and, whether you agree with their purpose or not, they served their nation before being retired at the end f useful lifetimes. The taxpayers did not pay for junk, it paid for useful aircarft.

And more than a third of the aircraft there were not paid for by the taxpayers at all, but were sent there by commercial operations and by other nations.

Any figures I have would be thirty years old and not very accurate. Several friends worked there and the only numbers I know of were that it took in more than three times in revenue what it cost to run it.

[packman]

6. I understand there is a Tank Graveyard also

[jwirr]

18. I was just going to ask that. How many of these dumps do we have?

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. What's even more amazing is how many aircrat have been there and been scrapped.

Thousands and thousands of warplanes, from WW II to present. The numbers are mind boggling.

Here's a 9:25 vid on the facility;

https://m.

It has been said that Davis Monthan is the only US Air Force facility that actually turns a profit, via repurposing airframes and components.

[sharp_stick]

11. They still use the aircraft there for parts

and occasionally a plane makes it's way back into active service. In February a B52 was brought back.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/02/19/b52-comes-back-from-the-boneyard/23675305/

[2naSalit]

13. It's not the only one...

http://www.johnweeks.com/boneyard/

[joeybee12]

15. This makes me so mad...I want them to cut out seafood options for food stamps...

Right now!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Somewhere in that monument to futility and killing are some planes I worked on.

Sent there in 1963.

They were replaced by more efficient machines for killing people.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? Gandhi

[nolabels]

19. Melt them down immediately !

We need a lot more aluminum for solar panel framing