Airplane Graveyard at Davis Monthan AFB

The Famed Airplane Graveyard / Bone Yard at Davis Monthan Airforce base in Tucson Arizona. Hundreds of B 52 Bombers await the smelter, as per the Salt 2 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) treaty with Russia. These bombers were laid out and chopped into pieces with a giant crane controlled guillotine. They were left in this state so they could be photographed by Russian Spy satellites for proof of compliance with Salt 2. Shot in 1994 this photograph shows an important part of Cold War History. After a few months trucks hauled away the scrap metal to be recycled at the local smelter. These famous relics are most likely beer and soda cans now. If you click on the image above a larger view of the complete image will pop up in another window. The Airplane Graveyard, is not just a fence around piles of out dated scrap metal, millions of dollars of surplus parts are salvaged to keep other active aircraft flying. You can think of this place as a huge warehouse for all types of spare parts which saves taxpayers millions of dollars every year. Many people think the government sells flying airplanes to the general public, this is not true. Anything the government sells, which could cause potential injuries, like a life raft, pilot helmet, or a flying aircraft will be "demilled" before it leaves the base. Demilling which stands for De Militarize, includes slashing rafts with a razor knife, crushing helmets, or in the case of an airplane chopping the wings off, or cutting the fuselage into three pieces. Some of the aircraft stored at the Bone Yard are turned into remotely controlled drone aircraft like what was done with the F-106 drone program. The Pima Air & Space Museum offers tours of Davis-Monthan's AMARC (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center) Facility.