airline mothball / boneyard marana arizona

[tom d. friedman]

read in today's paper with the crapped out economy that a mothball & boneyard facility for airliners exists in marana arizona with 2,302 planes from airlines worldwide which are being stored or disposed of. of these birds 930 are from u.s. operators alone. another 1,700 are slated to arrive this year!! some will be scrapped others are hoped to be refurbished if air travel perks up. the company running the storage place is evergreen maintenance center near marana. there are an additional 204 carcasses in another compound across from the storage area. i'd love to see some pictures of that spectacle, even though the reason is most sad & affects countless people in the airline industry. a sad sign of the times.

[T2 Ernie]

I was at Marana a year or two ago and it's always been a storage place, AFAIK. Roswell is another one. Check out google-earth. We do pattern work at Roswell all the time and they're always destroying a plane...sad.

[Second Air Force]

My little company is retiring our Junk and a few MD-80s to ROW. I think all the storage facilities are going to look like Walnut Ridge before the dust settles.

[airknocker]

For the latest comings and goings in the southwest storage yards.
http://www.cactuswings.blogspot.com/

[Second Air Force]

I just read an article published yesterday in the Dallas paper that puts the number of airplanes currently in "storage" at Victorville at just short of 200. Marana has 198 airframes according to the article.

[aseanaero]

and they're always destroying a plane...sad.

Well sad for some , fun for others and we can't save them all.

Doing a 'Z check' on an aircraft really lets you see how well these aircraft are built , I'm impressed by the B727 , that aircraft is built like a tank and everything was really well put together in comparison with some English aircraft from the same period which seem overly complicated in some area and primitive in other areas.

I'm amazed what remains in the aircraft in Indonesia when an aircraft is scrapped , tanks half full of avtur , on board spares kits and service tools , flight manuals and I have a growing collection of David Clark headsets (scored 5 last year) , the headsets are part of the company owned aircraft 'kit' for some operators here and they just leave them in the cockpit !

Then there's the snap-on tools that have been dropped in accessible parts on the aircraft , I found 2 ring spanners in the tail of one aircraft last year , a bit scary that they were flying around like that.

As labour is relatively cheap it's all done by hand with spanners , LPG/oxy (cheaper than oxy acetylene and it gets the job done) and Stihl saws. We save a lot of items that would be scrapped in the USA using modified excavators , I have a growing collection of lights , circuit breakers , stainless lines and wiring , I sell the odd item and the rest I will draw on for stock for upgrading systems my off road projects (a J20, CJ7 and Willys Jeep which is in for a 'D check)

I'm sure others have got better stories to tell.