Airplane Graveyard

Some 294,000 planes were produced by the United States for the Second World War, and when freedom was secured, the army was in a vast oversupply of planes. One year after the end of the conflict, around 34,000 planes were brought to 30 retail stores or "aircraft stores". Estimates indicate that a net profit of 117,210 planes is recorded.

When an aircraft was not purchased on a Boneyard such as Kingman AAF, Cal-Aero Field, and Walnut Ridge AAF, it was released from secret information, guillotined and smelted into bars in mills. Today, when the air force, navy and naval aircraft are outdated and need to be discarded or retained for later recommissioning, they are dumped in the Arizona wasteland.

Air Force Materiel Command's AMARG operating company runs the world's biggest storage facility at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. Passenger planes have a finite service life. A few are taken from flight condition and must be kept in a conservation-friendly area. Other are kept for replacement parts for airplanes.

In order to prevent aircraft from being damaged by winds and direct sunlight during stowage, motors and window frames are densely coated with reflecting whites. In this way, a fully enclosed commercial aircraft can be securely stowed for years until it is returned to operational flight or salvaged. Finally, all aircraft are taken out of operation and have to be "disposed of".

Airliners "Boneyards" in the west of the United States perform several functions: intermediate warehousing, servicing, parts recovery and scrap. Below you can see a list ot these institutions in the cemetery. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, the world's biggest warehouse site, allows visitors to visit the Aerospace Maintenace and Regeneration Group (AMARG) plant.

Boneyard lists, sales depots and disposal sites for military aircrafts after the Second Word War in the USA Giant fleet of excess aircrafts are stocked in Boneyard's in the United States, but also worldwide in England, Australia, Spain, France, Russia and elsewhere. Warehouses such as the Tarmac Aerosave facility at Teruel Airport in eastern Spain and the Asia Pacific Airport Stock (APAS) in Alice Springs, Australia, are dedicated to the warehousing and recovery of a large number of aeroplanes.

It can be difficult to identify different kinds of planes when you consider how many planes are stored every day around the globe and in the wasteland. See our new airline mock-up website for guidance on how to identify Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer, Antonov and other jetliners.