A visit was made to Mojave Spaceport, as it is now known, in order to view the stored airliners, and the other, interesting activities on the field.
Firstly the airliner situation, numbers are down over previous years, as some airliners have been returned to service, but many have been scrapped due to noise regs.
Stored means it looks pretty complete and could be returned to service, while wfu means it looked unlikely to fly again.
Airliners noted that looked stored were;
B767s, ex. Air Canada-C-GAUH, GAUN,.GAUS,GAUU, GAUW and C-GPWA
DC9s; N603DC/47784, C-FTMU/47554, C-FTMY/47592, N833JM/47611, C-FTME/47293, N882JM/47292, XA-RRY/45785, XA-LAC/47126, XA-RNQ/47059, XA-SWH/47236, XA-SYQ/ 45702, N133NK/48111 ex Spirit, N934AS/49235 ex Alaskan
Plus the following ex Northwest DC9s; N917RW, N919RW, N920RW, N621NW, N615NW, N616NW, N622NW, N618NW plus a couple more unident.
Also seen were a couple of ex. Continental MD80s, unident
B747s seen were N723SA/23641, N288BA/22710/ N730SA/22380, N716SA/24067, these are all stored for Southern and only used for spares now, so WFU.
DC10s seen were N557FE/46525 and N152AA/46707, both belong to Fedex for conversion to MD10, so may depart, both in Hawaiian colours.
Also seen, looking wfu were DC10s N14090/46553, N13088/46850 and N37078/46926 ex. Continental, and ex. Jal series 40s N856v/47857, N857V/47857 and N858V/48301 very wfu.
Tristar N752DA of Delta just survives and the last remains of N716DA just hang on to life. Both wfu.
B737s seen were XA-NOV/23521 of NovaAir, certainly active-being maintained, plus XA-UEL/22963 of Tropic stored.
Nearby were 737-200s N824AL/23045 and N810AL/24031 of Aloha, C-GUPW/22873 and C-GVPW/22874 of CPA all stored and N94SW/23053 and N85SW/22826 of Southwest both WFU, being parted.
One A300 survives there-N128AN/028, in Korean colours, it sits on trestles and is WFU
B707s N706PC/20177 and N707CA/20662 are still complete, while N707HE is active with Pratt and Whitney as an engine test bed.
3 Convairs still hang on to existance , CV880 N815AJ/35 and CV990 OB-R-765/02 are stored looking faded but complete, while CV990 N710NA is on the gate.
Finally Fokker 100 N1445B was being scrapped, while other Fokker100s could be seen but not ident, all were either scrapped or being scrapped.
Just one DC8 remains-N829BX is stored looking in good condition.
The rest of the field had lots of interest, not least the Scaled Composites site, where the Virgin Spacecraft are being built, one hangar was open so the tail of a mothership could be seen.
A QF4 from BAe is on the gate now-64-071, and 4 more were seen, but the site is now remote from the rest of the field.
Others scattered around included; N121TJ Mig21U; LY-AFT An2; N932ML/47547 DC9 of the US Navy, test aircraft covered in aerials, named Firebird II; B727 N982JM/21695 was sitting on the ramp-active; Tristar N140SC of Orbital Sciences was on its ramp; DC3 turbo N834TP; N401ME B212 medevac aircraft ; 3 Lansens-N4432v, N5465X, N4767R; C130A firefighter N466TM; AR110 Draken; N802FT Sabreliner; 4 A3 Skywarriers still in US Navy colours-N571HA, 572HA,162TB and 163TB; F100 Sabres N417FS and N418FS, plus 3-4 old Turkish Airforce F100 fuselages; N11XW Dove; 2 Paris N760PR and N760T, and up to a dozen ex. South African Air Force Impala airframes.
Tours can be arranged by going to the tower office and asking for Javier, the refueller!
Cheers
Eclipse