mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
I thought it was a mirage the first time I saw it. I was driving through the wastes of the Mojave Desert, two hours from anywhere, when off in the shimmering distance appeared the silhouettes of a hundred parked jetliners. I pulled off and tried to get closer to them, but a mean-looking perimeter fence keeps onlookers far away. All I could do was stand and stare, wondering what the hell this massive armada of airplanes was doing here, silently baking in the 110 degree heat. For years afterward I’d ask people what they knew about it, and I kept hearing the same thing: the place has been on lockdown since 9/11, and they won’t let civilians anywhere near the boneyard. But last week my luck changed — I met a very nice fellow who works there, and with a minimum of cajoling on my part he agreed to take me beyond the high-security fence and show me around. Of course, I brought my camera.
(If you’re interested in getting prints of any of these photos, they’re available here.)
The first thing to know is that the Mojave Air and Spaceport, as it’s officially known, isn’t just a graveyard for inactive planes. It’s an active airport, home to one of the nation’s only civilian test pilot schools, and most famously the place where Space Ship One was developed and performed the first privately-funded human spaceflight in 2004. But it also functions as a giant parking lot for hundreds of jets owned by dozens of different entities, from major airlines to private individuals. If an airline doesn’t anticipate needing some of its planes for an extended period of time, it’s much cheaper for them to park those planes in the desert and have maintenance crews check them out once every few weeks than to keep them active.
Some planes have been there only a few months — some have been there for years and years, owned by companies that rent space at the boneyard by the acre.
The most fascinating part of the facility, to me at least, is the boneyard itself. This is where planes that are no longer valuable enough to be repaired and put back into service — totaled, as it were — are cannibalized for spare parts. It’s not a delicate operation: the planes are ripped apart by big machines, torn into piles of fuselage that look, standing amidst them, like the aftermath of terrible crashes.
Other owners dismantle their planes piece by delicate piece, leaving most of the jet intact save some crucial part:
Inside some planes, you’d hardly know they weren’t simply waiting for the next planeload of passengers to take their seats.
Whole sections of a plane might be removed, but otherwise be intact. They sit like donor organs waiting for a transplant candidate.
Decapitated planes abound:
Further inspection revealed that the insides of these “plane heads” are often empty, stripped of their valuable avionics.
Some of the worthless bits become part of the landscape.
Aisle or window?
This tail section is held up by a hand-stacked pile of railroad ties.
I hope I never fly on a plane equipped with landing gear salvaged from the boneyard. But I suppose I would never know.
Inside an old cargo hold (I think) —
Scrapper graffiti.
Salvaged inflatable emergency slides, ready to be shipped off to new homes.
A jet engine without a jet.
Air Canada planes giving the grass a shady place to grow.
Elsewhere at the Air and Space Port, a glimpse of a few of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space planes. I believe that’s the White Knight Two, designed to ferry Space Ship Two into suborbital space. The juxtaposition of the deeply broken and the cutting edge at Mojave is jarring.
You can follow me on Twitter, or check out these other “Strange Geographies”
The Salton Sea
East LA’s Abandoned Hospital
Vanuatu: Happiest Place on Earth?
OIL! in LA
Salvation Mountain
Wreck Diving in the South Pacific
On Jumping Out of Airplanes
Comments (30)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
Ransom, Every time I read one of your posts, I’m amazed by the photography. What filters/editing software are you using?
posted by Stephen on 8-31-2009 at 12:17 am
And at the end of the article, an advertisement for Scientology. mental_floss guys really need to pay more attention to who they allow to advertise here.
posted by Nerdfury on 8-31-2009 at 3:47 am
I think there was an episode of “Mythbusters” that had them going out here to get stuff they needed for an experiment.
posted by Seanette on 8-31-2009 at 3:52 am
Nerdfury, I mention the Scientology ads several times a week in the comments and nothing ever changes, so…..
posted by Amanda on 8-31-2009 at 7:22 am
You guys need to dial down the outrage on the vast Floss/Scientology conspiracy! Those are Google ads that are served based on keywords (someone raised a good question the other day: what keywords are telling Google that a Scientology ad is appropriate?)
There is zero chance Mental Floss is working with The Church of Scientology, unless you think they have a huge advertising sales team securing all those ads (right now for me the ads are all boring text ads for cheap airfare, which is kinda funny).
posted by Cody on 8-31-2009 at 8:25 am
Cody’s right — those ads are served by Google and we don’t have control over what you’re seeing (I’m seeing two ads for Getty Images and one for PNC Bank.) I’d rather we not display ads that will get people worked up, be they religious or political or what have you, and we’ve tried to limit what’s shown (with no luck, apparently). I hate to see anything distracting from what is one of the most fascinating stories we’ve ever posted.
posted by Jason English on 8-31-2009 at 8:45 am
Good post. Even better is the Google Earth view of this boneyard. It’s HU-U-U-GE!!!
posted by Bubba on 8-31-2009 at 9:53 am
This has to be one of the most fascinating places in America for its sheer size and purpose. Incredible photos.
posted by Matt on 8-31-2009 at 10:27 am
These are great photos! Nice story too.
posted by Jen on 8-31-2009 at 10:33 am
Amanda – the more you mention it in the comments, the more it is going to show up. Ads show up based on site content.
Please just ignore it.
posted by EV on 8-31-2009 at 12:00 pm
Absolutely fascinating and the photography is amazing. How lucky you were to get to tour this area!
posted by Fran on 8-31-2009 at 1:21 pm
Apparently Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh. This is the image information from the Opera web browser:
Orientation of image: 1
File change date and time: 2009:08:28 11:45:13
Image input equipment manufacturer: Canon
Image input equipment model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Software used: Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh
Exposure time: 0.003125
F number: 9
Exposure program: 2
ISO speed rating: 100
Shutter speed: 8.375
Aperture: 6.375
Exposure bias: -0.666667
Metering mode: 5
Flash: 16
Lens focal length: 24
Focal plane X resolution: 3849.21
Focal plane Y resolution: 3908.14
Focal plane resolution unit: 2
posted by dan1101 on 8-31-2009 at 1:42 pm
Hi guys — thanks!
@ Dan and Stephen –
Yep, I use Photoshop on some photos to tweak contrast and exposure, but Aperture is my main program. A few of these (with especially crazy-looking skies) are HDR photos — 3 or more exposures combined. And a good camera and lens help — the canon 5d mark II w/ the 24-70 L glass zoom.
posted by Ransom Riggs on 8-31-2009 at 2:02 pm
I grew up passing by this graveyard all the time, it was right behind my high school and I never really thought twice about it. Great photos.
posted by V on 8-31-2009 at 2:28 pm
This wasn’t the airport and boneyard used in the movie “Con Air” was it?
posted by Mike on 8-31-2009 at 3:16 pm
Amazing photography work. I think the second pic is my favorite. Thanks for sharing!
posted by Hastings on 8-31-2009 at 3:48 pm
Great post! I love the Strange Geographies posts! Check out the Aircraft Boneyard in Tucson, Az. It is at the Davis Monthan AFB. It is ginormous.
posted by Stacy on 8-31-2009 at 4:02 pm
Scientology ads are easy to ignore. The ugly teeth are the ones that I’d rather not see.
posted by Steve M. on 8-31-2009 at 4:44 pm
Great article and photos! Thanks!
posted by Steve from San Diego on 8-31-2009 at 6:37 pm
Firefox with an adblock extension. I had no idea there were even ads on this page.
Great pictures. I’ve flown over it many times and it’s pretty surreal.
posted by TimCthefilmguy on 8-31-2009 at 6:49 pm
I used to fly into Lagos, Nigeria, from time to time. The sides of the runway were littered with cannibalized fuselages. Airlines generally avoided keeping a plane there overnight.
posted by JoeLeTaxi on 8-31-2009 at 7:05 pm
Strange Geographies is one of my favorite features.
posted by Rachel on 8-31-2009 at 8:10 pm
I grew up in a small town not far from the Majoave Airport and reseach center you are talking about. I have been there many times, parking on the side of highway 58 to watch many experimental planes taking test flights by Dick Rutan and people like him. There is allot that goes on there that people know nothing about and it is fascinatiing. I always wanted to get a closer look at these planes and now you’ve given me the chance. Thank you for the terrific pictures!
posted by Terry on 8-31-2009 at 9:52 pm
Stacy is right about Tucson. It looks very much like the one pictured above and contains not only old commercial aircraft, but mainly military aircraft. Most of the late model aircraft are said to be operational within 24 hours in an emergency. All I know is that there is enough firepower in Tucson alone to wipe out most nations’ militaries.
posted by Mart on 8-31-2009 at 10:25 pm
Some of these have a quality to them that is reminiscent of something out of the futuristic landscape of the Terminator movies – like “fuselage” and IMG_3333.
posted by Ian on 9-1-2009 at 12:30 am
How do you get to walk around the boneyard? The website indicates that one cannot even leave the fueler vehicle tour.
posted by Spencer on 9-2-2009 at 12:50 am
Ransom, you did some great pictures of the graveyards, I was there just a few days before you (08/23/2009) I did the tour of the airport in a little minibus we did not use the fueltruck but it was the feul truck driver (real nice guy ) who was driving, including the boneyards but I could take pictures everywhere EXCEPT in the boneyards area.
You were quite luky to be able to do it!
posted by cooldude on 9-24-2009 at 6:20 am
In the picture third from the last, the airplanes look like cattle grazing the field.
This is an excellent series!
posted by ds on 10-5-2009 at 3:34 pm
This place has been immortalised in Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas…..though the boneyard’s rather immortal itself, no?
posted by Bakedpotatoes on 11-4-2009 at 2:43 pm
I wonder, do movies and TV shows get plane parts from this place? I just keep thinking about “Lost” whenever I look at the photos.
posted by Emilee on 3-11-2010 at 10:41 am