Airplanes are designed to soar among the clouds, but where do they go when their days of reaching cruising altitude are behind them? Not to a great hangar in the sky, alas. After taking their last flight, decommissioned aircraft remain forever earthbound. Many are sent to so-called aircraft graveyards or “boneyards,” including the largest one in the world: the Davis-Monthan Air Force Boneyard, located in the desert about 5 miles southeast of downtown Tucson, Arizona. Take a look at this fascinating facility and how it breathes new life into military operations.
Serving as the final resting place of thousands of aircraft, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Boneyard has been officially known as the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) since 1985. Before moving to its current location in Tucson in 1965, the facility opened in Phoenix in the wake of World War II.
The U.S. Air Force had a lot of airplanes after its WWII triumph, and they had to go somewhere. Nearly 65,000 aircraft were stored (or eventually decommissioned) at 30 airfields, including Davis-Monthan, which is now the primary aviation boneyard for America’s military and employs more than 500 people.
Not all of the 3,500 planes at Davis-Monthan are there forever. Some are merely stored on-site while being updated before returning to service or being sold, while others have rare and valuable parts removed for use in other aircraft…