World's largest aircraft boneyard is more than 2,600 acres big and has over 4,000 planes
Gerrard Kaonga
Featured Image Credit: Mike Fiala/Getty Images / Wikimedia Commons
The world’s largest aircraft boneyard is certainly a sight to see and is home to thousands of aircrafts that have been used in operations around the world and even taken to space.
Do airplanes go to heaven? Well, we at least know where many of them end up once they have outlived their usefulness.
The aircraft boneyard is essentially out in the Tucson, Arizona desert and homes aircrafts that would have been more than a touch important in their heyday.
The desert is estimated to be about 2,600 acres and has over 4,000 planes on the patch of land.
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The boneyard homes excess military and government aircraft from a bunch of different departments, including vehicles that belonged to the Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and NASA.
A video has begun recirculating on social media as it shows the vastness of the boneyard from the skies.
Captured by Chip Malt on Instagram in 2022, the clip has been viewed more than 415,000 times.
“The World’s largest Aircraft Boneyard from above - this is the sole aircraft boneyard and parts reclamation facility for all excess military and U.S. government aircraft Malt wrote as a caption.
“Aircraft from the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, NASA and more. They also convert old fighter jets into drones. These planes are stored in Arizona because the weather helps preserve them,”
The dry local environment means the speed at which corrosion occurs is reduced, and the hard ground means it does not need to be paved.
“With the area’s low humidity in the 10%-20% range, meager rainfall of 11″ annually, hard alkaline soil, and high altitude of 2,550 feet allowing the aircraft to be naturally preserved for cannibalization or possible reuse, Davis-Monthan is the logical choice for a major storage facility,” according to a report by the Airplane Boneyards publication.
The viewers of the video were definitely impressed at the mere scale of the graveyard as well as the fact the aircrafts are neatly laid out.
“I was stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and I was able to go through the boneyard a few times. Really incredible how many aircraft are there,” said one user.
“Please... just give me one small private jet...please,” joked another.
“This is just heaven for some guys like me who love aeroplanes,” another added.
“My boyfriend is a flight attendant would love this,” another wrote.