|
cubedweller
Jul 19, 2004
|
Fellow goon
Yellowgoat and I recently made a trip out the Mojave Airport in Southern California. It was my fourth time there and
his second. It's paradise for an airplane dork like me and with all of
the SpaceShipOne I AM SOUTH PARK'S BITCH, the atmosphere was even
better. Let's go!
The old Mojave tower, now used to pimp the fact that, yes, they fly to
space now.

Let's wander around the airport first.
Oh look, a DC-10 engine, just sitting out on a FedEx palette!

This 21 year old ex-southwest plane was having major regular maintenance
performed

This L-1011 is used to launch rockets and satellites.

These have been here since I first went to Mojave in 2000. A row of
wingless fuselages.

This is a full-sized mockup of a business jet, outside Burt Rutan's
Scaled Composites building.

Wow, futuristic! Actually it's just a movie prop.

This 747 is used exclusively for training people on how to do cargo
conversions

Now let's go over to the storage area

Air Canada has had some major financial problems, so here are a bunch of
their 767s

You can get pretty close to the planes

These 737-200s have some NASTY paintjobs

The green isn't much better - no wonder Zip went out of business

Here's a row of retired DC-9s, USAir and American Airlines being the
primary suspects

These planes have been in "Corrosion Corner" for over 30 years

Kinda sad to see them end up like this

This Hawaiian Airlines DC-10 used to be the Oakland Raiders' team plane.

This 747 had KLM colors but Algerian Airways titles

Pretty impressive up close

This KLM 747 is in slightly better shape

This is an unusual find. Rare airline and rare livery. It was in
surprisingly good shape.

This 747-200 was recently used to film the "Rebel Billionaire"
promo

And that brings to a close, our tour of the most unique airport in America.
|