Airplane Graveyard, Arizona

This is the Airplane Graveyard, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona

Aircraft boneyard is an American term for a storage area for aircraft that are retired service. Most aircraft at boneyards are either kept for storage or turned into scrap metal. Deserts, such as those in the Southwestern United States, are good locations for boneyards since the dry conditions reduce corrosion.

The Airplane Graveyard-Bone Yard at Davis Monthan Airforce Base near Tucson, Arizona in the Sonora Desert is where the US Air Force stores unused planes until they either need them again or want to scrap them for spare parts. Apparently as part of the deal when the US sells surplus planes to foreign governments part of the sales pitch is that there will always have a ready and large supply of spare parts. Some of them are turned into pilotless drones and used for missile target practice.

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. There are over 4,000 planes in storage, most are from the Vietnam era.