Boneyard Beauty

Cool time lapse video of Davis-Monthan. Time lapses are a lot of work to set up correctly, especially with panning ones like in the video so I can appreciate the time it took (no pun intended) to make this stunning piece.

Commonly referred to as the “Boneyard,” the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., contains about 5,000 retired military aircraft throughout 2,600 acres. Crews at the Boneyard preserve aircraft for possible future use, pull aircraft parts to supply to the field, and perform depot-level maintenance and aircraft regeneration in support of Air Force operations.

Absolutely gorgeous ! I love the color and textures you
captured ! Truly beautiful! Now I gotta go back and
look for UAP.

very cool.

there's a few interesting lights up in the sky in the video.

a reply to: UnderKingsPeak

The bus tour is absolutely worth it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

It is and the adjacent Pima Air and Space Museum is really good!

a reply to: Sammamishman

T-38 at :44 would have been right at home in Battlestar Galactica! The capitalist in me sits here and wonders why we fret over paying for the next generation of fighters, bombers,tankers, or transports and how all of this broken machinery could have payed for it. Selling these machines at any cost to desperate air arms. Gets suppliers to keep producing parts. Keeps jobs. Makes flying your own legacy fleet cheaper.

Regardless. Art. Very well done and will enjoy now and in the future!

a reply to: Caughtlurking

A lot of them couldn't fly again, and most of them are at or near the end of their life cycle. The Thunderbirds F-16s that were retired were all, literally, bent from the over Gs they took every show.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: UnderKingsPeak

The bus tour is absolutely worth it.

It certainly is, I did it back in 1981 when it was known as the MASDC.

a reply to: Zaphod58

But a lot of them could be "refit" which maybe isn't first world awesome but we've seen what the rest of the world is killing each other with lately and they look pretty crisp. Just saying that when they were retired a lot of those aircraft were still holding credible capital.

a reply to: grey580

~3:40 was a good one

Reminds me of a Disney cartoon way back when I was a kid, Susie The Car. I cried so much when Susie ended up in the boneyard that my mother nearly hauled me out the cinema. At least Susie had a good outcome.

Appreciate the tourists get a kick from their tours. But many of those aircraft are just decrepit heaps ... F4 Phantoms ? I was going to ask whether F4s were still in service anywhere these days. But I'm genuinely surprised to discover that F4s still fly in the Greek and Japanese air forces ! That boneyard must be a really useful source of spares for air forces all around the world.

Great video. Thanks for posting.

a reply to: TheShippingForecast

That's why they are still in the Boneyard. They can't totally scrap an aircraft until the last one is retired, from whoever still flies them.