Contrary to popular belief, The Boneyard is not a cemetery for aircraft.
It’s where aircraft come in to get a second chance … or a third chance!
Aircraft come here to be preserved and treated with dignity … according to my research!
Ok, for this particular B-52, it may have been a butcher shop experience, but consider that
roughly 4000 aircraft and parts are stored here, and they are worth a whopping 35 billion dollars!
I mean, just the technology behind this one stealth aircraft is probably worth a fortune!
I think we got started on the wrong foot. Let me explain why
the Boneyard is far from a junkyard for aircraft.
After the end of WWII, as you can imagine, there was a huge surplus of military aircraft.
Scrapping all those old airplanes would not have been a wise decision,
because they could be repurposed, or at a minimum, used for spare parts.
On the other hand, building large hangars to accommodate the storage of thousands of airplanes,
some of which were gigantic, would have demanded a huge investment.
Luckily, the desert lands near Tucson, Arizona provided the perfect location for
an outdoor storage facility … and not just because of the dry climate of that area.
There was plenty of space in the desert! The Boneyard currently covers an area of
about 2600 acres. At its peak, there were 6080 aircraft stored at this facility.
The ground here was as hard as concrete, so the heavy airplanes wouldn't sink
into the desert floor, and there was no need to pave that massive area either.
Of course, the low humidity and alkaline soil protected these airplanes against
their biggest silent enemy – rust. However, there was one big problem.
The desert gets very hot. Especially during those sunny summer days in Tucson,
the temperatures could reach over 100F or 38C. But parts of the aircraft that are enclosed,
like the cockpit, could easily heat up to double that temperature, and that can destroy the flight
control systems and other electronics inside over time. So something needed to be done.
This is why storage, or more precisely, preservation of aircraft, is a major skill
set at the Boneyard. But storage is only one of the many services that this facility provides.
This is why the Boneyard is formally known as AMARG, or 309th Aerospace
Maintenance And Regeneration Group, and they do some really cool things here,
like taking fighter jets and turning them … into drones!
On average, every day, one aircraft arrives at the Boneyard,
and one leaves. And this is what happens to the aircraft upon arrival:
The aircraft is first inspected and the components onboard are documented for inventory purposes.
Naval aircraft which used to operate from aircraft carriers get a bit of a
special treatment, in the form of a thorough wash.
This is done to eliminate any saltwater or other corrosive agents that may be on the aircraft.
To preserve the engine, the aircraft is moved to the flush farm.
At this station, any residual jet fuel is drained from the engine.
Shortly after, the aircraft is refueled – not with jet fuel, but with a light-weight 10/10 oil.
The personnel then run the engine, which draws the oil into the fuel system and the
engine components. The oil helps preserve these components while they sit in storage.
The oil is then drained from the engine and returned to holding tanks for later re-use.
Next, all aircraft go to the cleaning station where they
are washed and checked for any signs of corrosion.
Just to make sure nothing funny happens with the
ejection seats while the airplane is in storage, the actuators are removed.
Deserts are dusty, and hot, so parts of the aircraft are sealed
using a black water-based latex type material, known as Spraylat.
Engine inlets and outlets are covered by an aluminized cloth material called barrier paper.
Spraylat and barrier paper are used, not just to protect the aircraft against dust,
but also against birds that may otherwise get into the engines.
To prevent the cockpit temperature from skyrocketing and destroying the internal
components, while the aircraft sits under the sun for months and years,
a white coating is applied on top of the black coating, which reflects much of the sunlight.
With the help of this white coating, the internal temperature of the aircraft stays within 10 to
15 degrees of the outside temperature, even when it's scorching hot outside.
Here is the interesting part. At some point, before aircraft can be returned to flyable status,
those layers of Spraylat need to be taken off. This is why before spraying the aircraft,
first a wide black plastic tape, similar to electricians’ tape, is used to mark the borders of
the area to be sprayed. This way, the outer edges of the coating can be more easily peeled off.
Once the preservation process has been completed, the aircraft is moved to a
designated area for storage. With no fuel in the tank, it’s not like someone could just roll in
and steal these airplanes. So why do they use cables to tie down the aircraft to the ground?
It is not theft that the Boneyard personnel are afraid of. It’s the wind. Afterall, aircraft are
designed to fly using lift, and even though strong winds are likely not going to fly the airplane
away, they can definitely move it, which can cause damage to that aircraft or the other ones
parked nearby. This is why some larger aircraft need up to 72 tie-downs to keep them parked.
One of the main contributions of AMARG is regeneration,
which means taking an aircraft out of storage and returning it to flyable status.
For example, turning fighter jets into drones, not those ones, these ones.
These regeneration programs demand large hangars, like this $25M hangar which took
4.5 years to build. I guess someone thought that a massive hangar demands a massive pair of scissors
for the opening ceremony. Thankfully a wise guy brought his regular pair!
The first full-scale drone conversions began in the 1970s, with the conversion of 153 F-102
Delta Daggers into their drone variant, QF-102, to be used as aerial targets. The regeneration
efforts continued with the F-100 Super Sabre, F-106 Delta Dart, F-4 Phantom, and F-16 Viper.
The QF-16 aerial targets take 3 to 4 months to reactivate. They can be operated manned or
unmanned. AMARG flight test pilots take the aircraft for functional testing, at least a
couple of times. Of course when used as an aerial target, the aircraft would be unmanned … I hope!
In case you’re wondering why the tail is painted red,
that has nothing to do with the F-16 being converted to an aerial target.
It’s in fact a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American military aviators in the US
Armed Forces, who during WWII, used to paint the tail of their aircraft red, not only to make them
more recognizable, but also as the symbol of the Tuskegee Airmen's pride, courage, and perseverance
in the face of racial discrimination that was prevalent back in those days.
Aside from regeneration programs, aircraft are sometimes pulled out of storage to be sold. In
2016, two KC-130s which used to be operated by the Marine Corp, were sold to the Philippine’s air
force under the foreign military sales program. In the event of natural disasters, like typhoons,
these aircraft can provide additional airlift capabilities for the Philippines.
Even though some fleets of old aircraft are still active, many of their components and spare parts
are not produced anymore. The Boneyard returns between 250M to 500M dollars worth of aircraft
parts annually to be used in active fleets, which otherwise would have had to be grounded.
But not all aircraft at the Boneyard can be used for spare parts.
Type 1000 aircraft are the ones that have a high potential to return to flying status,
so no parts are to be removed from them. They are also completely re-preserved every 4 years.
Type 2000 aircraft may be reclaimed for parts, but only by the owner of the aircraft,
or in support of the System Program Office, which specifically addresses issues with aging aircraft.
Type 4000 aircraft are considered excess,
and can be reclaimed by any military branch or government agency.
When aircraft are no longer needed, they are stripped of their hazardous
and radiological components. They may then be donated to museums or just be
transferred to disposition agencies that coordinate their sale as scrap.
That said, some aircraft have had their wings cut off, due to international treaties.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is a nuclear arms reduction agreement between
the United States and Russia that limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads,
like the number of ICBMs, and heavy bombers that each side can have at any given time. Basically,
the US and Russia agreed that they both have way too many ways to nuke each other, and decided to
cut back a little bit. And for the Americans, that meant cutting 365 B-52s into pieces.
Of course, since both Americans and Russians trust each other so much,
the completion of the destruction was verified via satellite and in-person visits.
The Boneyard is one of the 17 facilities in the United States,
where Russian officials can inspect in order to verify compliance with the treaty.
Since the early 1960’s all surplus aircraft from the US Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps,
Army, Coast Guard and other agencies like NASA have been stored at the Boneyard.
AMARG even stores aircraft for some US allies, like Canada, where we are.
With all that said, tell me, do you still think the Boneyard is just a junkyard for Aircraft?