Warbird Information Exchange

If you can bear to look at the destruction/scrapping of old commerical jets, take at look at these. www.junkyardjets.net and www.scrappingaircraftgiants.com

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

We were out at the former Burns Flat NAS/Clinton-Sherman AFB a few years ago and this was sitting on the south end of the apron. It's all that remained of a 747 that had been scrapped there. Apparently the equipment that the scrappers had been using was not up to the task of carving up the wing box. Sad to see them go, but imagine the number of sauce pans that could be made from all the metal!


S

Sad but maybe some of that recycled metal will end up in a new airplane. A couple or three years ago I saw a magazine feature, maybe in A&S, about recycling the materials a typical airlines was made of. The picture that grabbed me was a ground-up view of a large excavator-looking rig with a big pincer on the end of the boom. It was biting into the tail of an airliner. The photo caption said it was a 747. I did a double take, thought about the size and then realized how darn big that trackhoe must be! Being in aviation as a hobby and tractors and equipment for a living, the reality check hit me. That was one humongous chopper.

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"I love the smell of 100LL in the morning."

This B-737-200, N453AC has been chopped up. It originally was delivered to New Zealand's National Airways Corporation. It ended up at AirCal and then American Airlines after the buyout. I flew it and got my FAA B-737 Type Rating in it. Ironically, I married a New Zealand lady while flying a 737 that originally flew in her country!

Sad to see a bit of New Zealand's airline history get chopped up. Oh well nice to see you got to marry a Kiwi lass though!