The Aircraft Boneyard
After the Friday link to the Aircraft Boneyard last week (zoom in on the image--it gets progressively more amazing the closer you get), DQ reader Gregg Wright sent this e-mail:I just had to drop you a line today because of your Friday Link to the Google maps for the aircraft boneyard. If you think it's a great view 'from space' you should see it at ground level. I live about a mile north of the boneyard and pass 'through' it everyday (Kolb Rd on the map) on my way to work. An interesting tidbit about 'AMARC', as the Air Force calls it (that's Aircraft Maintenance And Regeneration Center) : it's a prominent feature in the Transformers 2 movie, but the producers magically transported it from Tucson, AZ to Washington, DC, where it is supposedly part of the Air and Space museum.
When I was kid there where dozens of B-52 bombers lined up in seemingly never-ending rows. Occasionally my Dad would drive me out to park on the edges of the facility to watch the sunrise or sunset over the tower vertical stabilizers of the this 'ghost squadron' of B-52s. I still recall how sad I was when treaties with the Soviet Union required us to destroy all of those legendary aircraft. They were literally sliced into pieces using massive guillotines.
By the way, if you do Google image searches for B-52, AMARC, and B-52 guillotine, you can find some pretty striking images of what the boneyard looked like in its 'prime' and the device that ruined it for many of us.
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