The largest airplane cemetery. Main Russian aircraft cemeteries Airplanes on the Khodynka field

Illustration copyright USAF

Where do decommissioned planes go? The correspondent talks about the huge “cemeteries” in the desert in the southwestern United States, where thousands found their final refuge aircraft.

If you drive along South Kolb Road through Tucson, Arizona, you can see unusual landscape: a row of houses gives way to rows of American military aircraft, lying silently under the scorching desert sun. There is everything here: from giant cargo planes to lumbering bombers, Hercules military transports and F-14 Tomcat jet fighter-interceptors, known to viewers from the Hollywood action movie “Top Gun”.

This is the US Air Force Base Davis-Monthan, where the 309th Aerospace Repair and Maintenance Group is stationed. Here, on an area of ​​10.5 square kilometers, about 4,400 aircraft live out their lives. Some of them look as if they just returned from a flight just hours ago, some are covered with covers to protect them from sand and dust, and some are dismantled for parts that are waiting in hangars to be sent to other air bases in the United States or abroad and help existing aircraft take to the skies again. Airbase employees jokingly call it a “dump of bones” - quite in the spirit of the folklore traditions of the Wild West that developed in the early days of Arizona.

Davis-Monthan is not the only aircraft graveyard in the world, but it is undoubtedly the largest. Climatic conditions in Arizona, dry heat, low humidity and little precipitation help keep airplanes from rusting and breaking down longer.

In addition, under the soil at a depth of 15 centimeters there is a layer of clay nitrate. As the 309th Maintenance and Maintenance Group explains, thanks to this extremely hard “substrate,” aircraft can be parked right in the desert without having to build special, expensive platforms for them.

Illustration copyright USAF Image caption Decommissioned aircraft as a warehouse for spare parts...

Aircraft are very expensive to produce and operate, but they can provide benefits even after their flying career ends. However, storing departed vehicles in dry and warm hangars requires a lot of space and money. It's much cheaper to keep them in conditions like Tucson. That's why many of the largest junkyards for decommissioned aircraft are located in the deserts of the southwestern United States.

It would seem that it couldn’t be easier - to land the plane at Davis-Montana, park it next to the others and give someone the keys. But this is not enough. Many aircraft, although decommissioned, will have to be returned to service if necessary, so maintaining them requires a lot of effort.

Crashed bombers

The bone dump staff operates according to a clear procedure. All aircraft in service on aircraft carriers are thoroughly cleaned to prevent sea salt from causing corrosion. All fuel tanks and fuel lines are completely emptied and washed with a light, viscous oil, like that used in sewing machines, to ensure that all moving parts are well lubricated.

Illustration copyright USAF Image caption Top view of partially disassembled B-52 bombers

All explosive devices, such as charges that activate the ejection mechanism, are then removed from the aircraft with the necessary precautions. After this, all inlet holes and channels are sealed with aluminum tape, and the plane is covered with a special, easy-to-remove paint - two layers of black, and white on top to reflect the burning rays of the sun and prevent the plane from overheating.

Aircraft are stored in various stages of assembly - some are maintained in as close to working condition as possible if they are expected to fly again, and some are subject to partial dismantling. Among the Davis-Montana aircraft there are also retired American B-52 bombers, which can be equipped with nuclear weapons. Under the Strategic Arms Reduction and Limitation Treaties between the USSR and the United States, the wings of B-52 bombers were to be removed and stored next to the aircraft so that Soviet satellites would record their decommissioning.

Some cars are sold for spare parts, and the extra ones aircrafts crushed and completely processed in a smelting furnace located on the territory of the base.

In total, Davis-Montana has about 400,000 pieces of equipment and machinery for the production of various aircraft parts, including long-mothballed assembly lines from which most of the aircraft decommissioned here once came off. Airplanes containing spare parts from the colossal reserves of this air base serve not only in the United States, but throughout the world.

“As long as airplanes exist, cemeteries will be needed for the military and civil air fleet so that other aircraft continue to fly,” says American Nick Veronico, author of several books on aviation, who has visited both Davis-Montana and the Mojave Desert in the south. -western USA, and in other aircraft graveyards in the American deserts.

“I flew on airplanes that ended up in storage and became a source of spare parts for the air fleet,” says Veronico. “I got to watch usable parts being removed from an airplane, and then fly on an airplane that had those parts installed on it.” the same ones that were taken out, stored and installed in front of me.”

Image caption Soviet MI-6 helicopter that visited Chernobyl

There are equipment cemeteries in Russia where some old Soviet military aircraft are stored that are no longer destined to fly. The former Vozdvizhenka air base, about 100 kilometers north of Vladivostok, used to house Soviet supersonic bombers. After the end of the Cold War, the planes were unclaimed and simply remained where they were. The once secret base is now abandoned, and the ghostly squadron attracts only photographers who climb over rusty fences in search of spectacular shots.

Another landfill left over from Soviet times is located in the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, from where all residents were evacuated after the accident. The equipment used to clean up the disaster was contaminated with radiation, and several large Soviet helicopters were left to rust in the field.

In 2006, on the 20th anniversary of the nuclear power plant accident, BBC News photo editor Phil Coomes visited the site of the disaster. “After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a lot of contaminated equipment that was used to clean up the consequences was placed in repositories scattered throughout the huge exclusion zone around the reactor,” he says. - Some cars are there to this day. In the largest burial ground on the site of the village of Rassokha, the remains of helicopters, fire engines, military and civilian equipment are rusting. The landfill occupies a huge space, but over the years some cars have been used for spare parts, although the level of radiation here is different everywhere, and souvenir hunters should still stay away.”

Despite the risk of radiation damage, usable parts are removed from many helicopters - the skeletal remains are decreasing in size every year.

Illustration copyright Getty Image caption Decommissioned airliners at an airport in the Mojave Desert

In the USA, for civil aircraft whose service life has come to an end, last refuge serves as Mojave Airport, located in the desert eastern part American state California. For several decades now, airliners have been brought here and kept in the hot desert until they are processed for scrap.

“When driving through the California desert, the Mojave airplane junkyard can be seen from afar,” writes photographer Troy Paiva, who often photographed airplanes here in the 1990s and 2000s until the area was closed due to safety concerns. “It seems as if long rows of faded tails stretch to the very horizon.”

Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society Keith Maynard assures that the aircraft is much easier to disassemble than other heavy transport equipment. “I can’t tell you how labor-intensive the process is, but everything that is connected can be separated; in addition, airplanes contain much less heavy and hazardous materials than ships.” However, since the construction of modern aircraft uses fewer and fewer metals that need to be recycled, it may be possible to reduce the scale of landfills in deserts.

“The use of composite materials in the future may make final disposal more difficult, but specific industry protocols exist to address this issue. However, warehouses can still be useful as places to park aircraft during periods of fluctuations in demand. In fact, the number of aircraft put into storage can sometimes be used to judge the state of the economy, which is why analysts track this indicator.”

And at Davis-Montana, long rows of planes continue to sunbathe in the Arizona sun. For most, the desert has become a kind of retirement home. And some may one day take to the skies again.

In addition to a lot of attractions, such as Death Valley, many national parks and nature reserves, the dry Mojave Desert in the USA is also known for its aircraft graveyard. It is located near Mojave Airport, 100 kilometers northeast of Los Angeles. Huge planes are visible already from Highway 395. For travelers by car, the landmark will be the city of Victorville, then the small old town of Mojave and the junction of state highways 58 and 14 in Southern California.

Why is this cemetery in the Mojave Desert? The answer to the question is quite logical - a deserted desert area is an ideal outdoor storage facility. Here, record low rainfall and high temperatures most of the year help protect aircraft and their remains from rust. In the aircraft graveyard, huge, once-flying aircraft have been dismantled for parts. Even though the gliders are fenced with barbed wire and regularly patrolled, it is still possible to walk up to the fence and see these giants.

In the vast area you can see various models of commercial aircraft, because Mojave Airport began storing gliders at the spaceport in 1970. During times of economic crises and falling demand for air travel, old aircraft that were unfit for further use were brought here. Also, in addition to passenger aircraft, the remains of military aircraft were also brought to Mojave. This place is the world's largest equipment cemetery.

Here you can find various models of Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas. The planes stored and buried in the Mojave Desert in the United States belong to more than a hundred airlines, and many of them have long since ceased to exist.

The largest number of aircraft (more than a thousand) was achieved in 2002, as most(about 360 units) of airliners were parked after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which hit the United States. Airlines then could not afford to keep so many flights in the air, the hangars at American airports were full, and it was necessary to allocate an area for parking aircraft. In many ways, the Mojave Desert fit the bill.

Some aircraft that were quite suitable for further operation were then parked. They were forced into suspended animation. To prevent the sand and desert wind from completely destroying the mechanisms, their windows and engines were covered with plastic. Maybe someday such planes will still fly, especially since many of them are up for sale.

But on the far side of the runway at Mojave Airport in the United States, there is a burial ground - this is the place where old planes go to their deaths. Most jetliners have already reached the end of their service life and can no longer be used. On average, the lifespan of commercial aircraft is about 25 years, although their “life” is now measured not in years, but in the number of flights. After thousands of takeoffs and landings, planes can no longer withstand the pressure of high flight without replacing major parts. These worn-out aircraft, parked in deserted lots, are now being dismantled, and their parts are used to repair aircraft of these models. When both spare parts and aircraft are no longer suitable for reuse, they are dismantled and sent for processing - crushed and melted into raw aluminum ingots.

At any given time, once in the aircraft cemetery, you can see a dozen aircraft in various states of disassembly. Some airframes are almost disassembled, and particularly expensive spare parts are removed, others are simply smashed. Scattered around are pieces of the fuselage, tails and wings of aircraft, wheels, passenger seats... A real burial ground for monuments of outdated technologies!

Mojave Airport in the United States is relatively close to Hollywood, so several aircraft are always on standby for use in film production. Dozens of famous films and footage were shot in the Mojave Desert! Including "Speed" with Keanu Reeves, "Die Hard 2" with Bruce Willis and "Independence Day" starring Will Smith. If there is a scene in a film with an airplane exploding, then there is a huge chance that this footage was filmed in the Mojave.

It is almost impossible to get there and look at the aircraft cemetery yourself. This is not an amusement park at all! The facility is classified and visits are extremely limited. In addition to barbed wire, security patrols and the possibility of arrest with a fine of about 20 thousand dollars, you can be bitten (and maybe even eaten) by guard dogs! But daredevils (especially the ubiquitous photographers) are also in the United States. Under the cover of darkness, they set off in search of adventure in an airplane graveyard. Although during the day, smiling through the fence at the guards and asking politely, you can come in for a few minutes and take a wonderful, unique shot for yourself.

video on ruTube

"Central Aerodrome named after. Frunze"

We found this cemetery quite by accident, the day before yesterday. Wandered around satellite map while looking for the Museum of Money and came across a strange emptiness in the Airport metro area. On the map there were strangely shaped houses and a field with airplanes. As it turned out, it was an abandoned airfield on Khodynskoye Field - “Frunze Central Airfield”.

The next day we made a raid on this airfield. What we saw there shocked us. Once mighty, beautiful machines were left to rot in the rain, blisters were broken, their insides were turned out... But these are the planes and helicopters that once protected us...

And behind the dead planes the sunset was burning.

People! Whoever has access to our gentlemen from the state apparatus - do what you can! At least you can. Journalists, write about this. Maybe something will help...

For the media: if you need high-resolution photos, please contact us.

Farewell to Khodynka

Nothing on earth lasts forever. And, of course, this applies to aviation technology. “Airplane cemeteries” are the name given to places where obsolete aviation equipment is located. In Russia, such “cemeteries” are located mainly in Moscow and the Moscow region.

The most popular are Khodynskoye Field, Domodedovo Airport and the Museum of the Air Force Russian Federation in the village of Monino, Moscow region, as well as the largest museum in Ulyanovsk, in the Middle Volga region. Photos of these attractions filled the Internet. And despite the fact that these photos cause a slight sadness, they also make you want to look at these planes with your own eyes and visit a little bit of the past.

Khodynskoe field

The first such “aircraft cemetery” in Russia was Khodynskoe Field. It is located in the north-west of Moscow, near the Airport metro station. At the beginning of the last century, an airfield was built there, which later received the name Central Airfield. Frunze. It was Khodynskoye Field that witnessed the first international flights in Russia. The airfield on Khodynskoye Field existed from 1910 to 2003. After the closure, it was decided to open an aviation museum there, but these plans were not destined to come true.

To date, some of the exhibits have been cut into scrap metal, and those that are better preserved are now displayed in the Vadim Zadorozhny Museum of Technology. After the closure of the airfield, the Khodynskoye field began to quickly be built up, and the fact that there was once an airfield on Khodynskoye is reminiscent of that same “aircraft cemetery” where forgotten planes and helicopters rot. In 2008, not far from the field, the reconstruction of the Aviators Park was completed, in which monuments were erected to the pilots who died on the Khodynskoye field in various historical battles.

Memory Corner in Domodedovo

Domodedovo Airport, located in the Moscow region, also boasts disused equipment. Departing planes sat right on the field, opposite the Domodedovo terminal, awaiting their fate. Passengers can clearly see them during takeoffs. They are also clearly visible from the Domodedovo terminal itself.

Photo: khmelikvictor.livejournal.com

Mostly Domodedovo Airlines planes are parked there, but there are also imported aircraft. Many of them have already donated parts to their newer brothers. No one knows about their future fate yet; maybe they will go to waste, or maybe they will remain a delight to the eyes of guests of Moscow and the Moscow region. In the meantime, everyone can come to Domodedovo at any time and take a photo against the backdrop of the “air giants”, taking a camera with them, or maybe even sit at the controls of a real plane.

Aviation Museum in the village of Monino

Not far from the capital, in the village of Monino, Moscow Region, is located the Museum of the Air Force of the Russian Federation, which several years ago received the status of a federal state cultural institution. It would be hard to call this place a cemetery.

Once upon a time there was one of the first airfields in the country, but when technology stepped far forward, the conditions at the airfield no longer met the standards. And gradually the airfield in the Moscow region began to turn into an aviation museum.

The museum houses a huge collection of domestic aircraft. There are also photographic materials and documents confirming the authenticity of the collection. It is probably difficult to find a place in Russia where such a number of different aircraft could be assembled. By studying the exhibits on display, you can trace the history of the development of domestic aircraft. Models of military and civil aircraft, helicopters, and gliders from the last hundred years are collected here. The museum has existed since 1958 and has hosted more than 3 million people from almost all over the world.

The largest “plane graveyard” in Russia

About 9,000 exhibits are located under open air in the city of Ulyanovsk. Most of these aircraft flew under their own power to Ulyanovsk to remain here forever, and one very heroic exhibit, TB-1, was brought in parts and assembled on the spot. These military and civil aircraft– all that remains from a bygone era. It is believed that the planes that ended up in this museum were very lucky.

Photo: alexio-marziano.livejournal.com

The museum is still young; it opened in 1983. The best time of year to visit is summer or late spring. During this period, the most colorful and lively photos are obtained. Museum employees, as well as aviation school cadets civil aviation, which owns the museum, are trying their best to maintain the beauty and mystery of their exhibits.