system

While on Vietnam War active duty at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson I bought my first home ever on E. Irvington Rd. facing the miles long north fence of MASDC [now 309th AMARG].
Guests would ask “how can you stand looking through your picture window out at an aircraft junkyard?” and I would bemusedly correct them.
I would have paid extra if necessary for that front row seat on the world’s largest movable feast outdoor airplane museum. The first couple years there, I watched early models of the B-52 slowly shrink and sink into the caliche. Their majestic wings would sag lower and lower as everything from massive vertical stabilizers to little Marman clamps [designed and manufactured by Zeppo Marx] plus pylons and landing gear were cannibalized to keep the H models flying [saving millions vs new replacements if even available from Boeing] until the remaining skeletal scraps were hauled off to the perimeter smelters as they had been since just after World War II.
Instantly, new rows of transports and tankers would appear…sometimes fighters.
Many of our retiring 431XXX TSgts and up were immediately hired just “up the street” [I-10] in Marana by Evergreen as they transitioned from running a secret CIA aircraft mod shop to creating an airliner repair facility and massive civilian boneyard with similar variety and artistic/historic appeal.

system

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”. Sun Tzu…

system

Is there still an aircraft disassembly operation in Shelton WA? Decades ago I drove past it and saw 727s.

Components like pumps and engines are often re-useable, perhaps after overhauling them.

Parts that are out of production are even more valuable.

And as with B-52s, decades ago USAF was cannibalizing old 707-320Cs for tail structure and the newer yaw damper system to improve some of its KC-135 tankers. That pushed the price of used 707-320Cs up.

system

“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure”.

Following the adoption of one of the arms reduction treaties (START, I believe) between the US and the Soviet Union, it became necessary for the US to reduce their nuclear delivery systems. One method we chose was to take the older B-52s and “amputate” their tails with a giant gillotine like machine. Once the tail was severed, it was towed just far enough away and left so that Soviet spy satellites overflying the storage yard could look down and verify the planes had been destroyed. It was sad to see those once proud birds lying in pieces like carcasses bleaching in the sun.