In 2011, one of the oldest airports in Moscow, Bykovo, built in 1933, was closed. Having looked at the territory of the airport from satellite maps, I noticed a group of aircraft away from the runway. Now it’s up to the small thing to come there and see everything with your own eyes.

Having collected all the traffic jams that were on the way to Bykovo, we got to the place just a couple of hours before dark. The weather was also unlucky, it was constantly raining. But on the other hand, as I expected, getting to the planes turned out to be elementary.

Older than the airport "Bykovo" was only the Central Airfield. M. V. Frunze, built in 1910 on the Khodynka field, which also ceased to exist in this century.

The first plane turned out to be exactly in the place where the coordinates from the satellite map showed. True, there were two of them in the picture, but in reality only one remained:

But a group of three aircraft, which was supposed to be a kilometer from this side, moved closer and acquired another car. So the number of abandoned aircraft on satellite map and actually matched.

The first, no longer an aircraft, on our way was IL-76TD:

This aircraft was released in December 1982 for the USSR Air Force. As a military transport aircraft, this aircraft flew for 10 years.

After the collapse of the USSR, the aircraft remained in Ukraine, where in 1993 it was sent for storage. After standing for two years, the aircraft began to be used again, first for one year in Ukraine, and then, after being converted into the Il-76TD, it began to be operated in Russia.

In Russia, this aircraft was operated by the Aviast airline, which, after seven years of flying, left it for storage at Bykovo Airport. The aircraft has not flown since then, but was able to outlive its airline, which was shut down in 2008.

It's time to get inside the plane. The door was not locked, and we, like decent people, went through it:

Inside, there is a mess, but this does not prevent us from appreciating the rather large size of the cargo compartment. Its length together with the ramp is 24.5 meters:

Maximum payload this aircraft was 50 tons and he could take this cargo to 3,650 km. Well, let's take another look at the cargo section and move into the cockpit.

Little is left of the cab. All equipment and even the floor was dismantled. Only the navigator's seat in its place:

This aircraft is operated by a crew of 7 people, so there used to be quite a lot of equipment. There is an escape hatch in the technical compartment next to the cab that leads to the outside. Having risen through the hatch, you can run around the plane from above:

As it turned out later, a few days after our visit, this IL-76TD was broken up and taken out.

Let's move on to a group of four aircraft. All of them were manufactured by Yakovlev Design Bureau. Yak-42D is a short-haul passenger aircraft that saw the sky for the first time 26 years ago. This aircraft replaced the Yak-42 and corrected a number of its obvious inconveniences. By the way, this aircraft was produced in the same year when the Yak-42D made its first flight.

Even 5 years ago, this aircraft flew regularly, and then the Elbrus-Avia airline sent it to storage in 2008. A year later, the airline was closed due to debts and the plane was arrested. According to the Internet, this Yak-42D was put up for sale. So if someone wants to buy this plane for himself, then let him prepare 33,759,000 rubles.

Of the 120 economy class seats, only three remained.

Rear entry ladder:

Cabin. Two people were enough to control the Yak-42D:

True, this plane is unlikely to fly, most likely it will suffer the fate of its neighbor - IL-76TD.

Another Yak-42D of Elbrus-Avia. The engines have already been removed from him, so I won’t be surprised if he goes under the knife:

This aircraft was released two years later than the previous one, in 1989.

Unfortunately, the cabin is also already pretty damaged:

Let's look at the plane one more time from the side and go to the next one.

Another Yak-42D. It also has no engines. This board managed to fly a little longer than its neighbors. He arrived in Bykovo in 2009 for maintenance, where he was arrested and sent here.

The rear entrance ladder was lowered, which made it easier to get inside:

This plane was sorely missing a floor:

Let's move on to the next aircraft, in my opinion it is the most interesting - the Yak-40K short-haul passenger aircraft:

Of all the planes we were on this evening, this is the best preserved cockpit:

It's funny that all these planes survived their airlines, which closed at the end of the zero years.

Image copyright USAF

Where do decommissioned planes go? The correspondent talks about the huge "cemeteries" in the desert in the southwestern United States, where thousands of aircraft.

If you drive along the South Colb Road through the city of Tucson, Arizona, you can see an unusual landscape: a row of houses gives way to rows of American military aircraft, silently sprawled under scorching sun desert. It has everything from giant cargo planes to hulking bombers, Hercules military transports and F-14 Tomcat interceptor jet fighters, known to viewers from the Hollywood action movie Top Gun.

This is the base air force USA "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 survive their lives. Some of them look like they just returned from a flight a few hours ago, some are covered with covers to protect them from sand and dust, and some are dismantled for parts that are waiting in the hangars in the wings to go to other air bases in the US or abroad and help the operating planes take to the skies again. Airbase staff jokingly call it a "dump of bones" - quite in the spirit of the folklore traditions of the Wild West, which developed at the dawn of the existence of Arizona.

Davis-Monthan is not the only, but undoubtedly the world's largest aircraft graveyard. Climatic conditions in Arizona - dry heat, low humidity and low rainfall - allow aircraft to be protected from rust and destruction for longer.

In addition, under the soil at a depth of 15 centimeters there is a layer of clay nitrate. As explained in the 309th repair and technical group, thanks to this extremely hard “substrate”, planes can be parked right in the desert without building special expensive platforms for them.

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

Airplanes are very expensive to manufacture and operate, but they can be useful even after the end of their flying career. However, it takes a lot of space and money to store the cars that have flown off their own in dry and warm hangars. Much cheaper to keep them in conditions like in Tucson. That is why many of the largest landfills of decommissioned aircraft are located in the deserts of the southwestern United States.

It would seem, what could be easier - to land the plane in the "Davis-Montana", park it next to the others and give the keys to someone. But this is not enough. Although many aircraft have been decommissioned, they will have to be returned to service if necessary, so their maintenance requires a lot of effort.

Broken bombers

The employees of the “dump of bones” act in accordance with a clear procedure. All aircraft that were in service on aircraft carriers are thoroughly cleaned so that sea salt does not cause corrosion. All fuel tanks and fuel lines are completely emptied and flushed with a light, viscous oil like that used in sewing machines to keep all moving parts well lubricated.

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

Then, with the necessary precautions, all explosive devices are removed from the aircraft - for example, charges that activate the ejection mechanism. After that, all inlets and channels are sealed with aluminum tape, and the aircraft is covered with a special, easily removable paint - two layers of black and white on top to reflect the burning rays of the sun and prevent the aircraft from overheating.

Aircraft are stored at different stages of assembly - some are maintained as close to working condition as possible if they are expected to still fly, and some are subject to partial dismantling. Among the aircraft "Davis-Montana" there are decommissioned american bombers B-52, which can be equipped with nuclear weapons. In accordance with the treaties on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive weapons between the USSR and the USA, the wings of B-52 bombers were to be dismantled and stored next to the aircraft so that Soviet satellites recorded their decommissioning.

Some cars are used for spare parts, and excess aircraft are 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 decommissioned aircraft once left. The aircraft, which are equipped with spare parts from the huge stocks of this air base, are serving not only in the United States, but throughout the world.

“As long as there are airplanes, cemeteries for the military and civilian air fleet will also be needed so that the rest of the aircraft continue to fly,” says Nick Veronico, an American author of several books on aviation, who has been to both Davis Montana and the Mojave Desert to the south. -western United States, and other aircraft cemeteries in the American deserts.

“I flew planes that ended up in a warehouse and became a source of spare parts for the air fleet,” says Veronico. the very ones that were taken out with me, stored and installed.

Image caption Soviet helicopter MI-6, which visited Chernobyl

There are tech cemeteries in Russia where some of the old Soviet military planes are stored, which are no longer destined to take to the skies. 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 ghost squadron attracts only photographers who climb over rusty fences in search of spectacular shots.

Another landfill left 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 that was used to clean up the aftermath of 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 accident, BBC News photography editor Phil Coomes visited the crash site. “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 burial sites scattered across the huge exclusion zone around the reactor,” he says. - Some machines 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 junkyard takes up a huge space, but over the years, some cars have been put into spare parts, although the level of radiation here is different everywhere, and souvenir hunters better still stay away. ”

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

Image copyright getty Image caption Decommissioned airliners at the airport in the Mojave Desert

In the United States, for end-of-life civilian aircraft, the last resort is the Mojave Airport, located in the desert eastern part of the US state of California. For several decades now, airliners have been brought here and kept in the hot desert until they are scrapped.

“When you drive through the Californian desert, you can see the Mojave junkyard from afar,” writes photographer Troy Paiva, who frequently photographed planes there in the 1990s and 2000s until the area was closed for safety reasons. “Long rows of faded tails seem to stretch all the way to the horizon.”

Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society Keith Maynard assures that the aircraft is much easier to disassemble than other heavy transport equipment. “I can't say how laborious this process is, but everything that is connected can be disconnected; besides, there are far fewer heavy and dangerous materials in airplanes than in ships.” However, as fewer and fewer recyclable metals are used in the construction of modern aircraft, 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 there are specific industry protocols to address this issue. However, warehouses can still come in handy as aircraft parking spaces during periods of fluctuating demand. In fact, the number of aircraft transferred to storage can sometimes be used to judge the state of the economy, so analysts monitor 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 nursing home. And some may one day rise to the sky again.

video on rutube

"Central Aerodrome named after Frunze"

We found this cemetery quite by accident, the day before yesterday. We wandered on a satellite map in search of the Money Museum and stumbled upon a strange void in the Airport metro area. On the map were strangely shaped houses and a field with airplanes. As it turned out, it was an abandoned airfield on the Khodynka field - "Frunze Central Airfield".

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

And behind the dead planes, the sunset burned out.

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

For the media: if photos are needed in high resolution, contact.

Farewell to Khodynka

The desert of Arizona is fraught with a lot of interesting things. For example, five thousand abandoned planes parked neatly and in a row among the sand and cacti.

This is the world's largest cemetery of old aircraft. Shall we take a walk?

1. Although the planes are abandoned and have not been flying for a long time, they are located on the territory of the Davis-Monten US Air Force Base, in the Arizona city of Tucson. All planes are fenced, and it is almost impossible to get inside.

2. America is not Russia, there are no leaky fences here, but if you try to go around the territory along the perimeter, there is a chance to find what you are looking for.

3. Only military aircraft rot and live out their lives here. Starting from the Second World War, all decommissioned, but not collapsed, sides were brought here, to the desert, to the Air Force base. That's what has accumulated.

4. The base itself was founded in 1925, and got its name in honor of two military pilots of the First World War - Samuel Davis and Oscar Montenay.

5. The base was expanded by 1940, when another one was already raging in Europe World War. At this base they began to train crews for bombers. After the end of the war, in 1945, the training base was closed and it was decided to use the place as a cemetery for now unnecessary combat aircraft. The local dry climate and hard soil provide ideal preservation for aircraft over a long period of time.

6. But soon the training center had to be formed again. The Cold War began and the military had to declare constant combat readiness, which lasted for almost forty years.

7. Combat units of strategic aviation and a special group of technicians settled here, ready to reopen old aircraft.

8. Since the early fifties, two Boeing B-29 Superfortress air groups have been based here, and since the sixty-third - Lookheed U-2 spy planes. Also, somewhere in the vicinity were located missile silos in the amount of 18 pieces.

9. The Cold War is over and constant combat readiness for so many aircraft has again become unnecessary. Planes are old and rusty. they missed

10. Some of them thought to repaint, refit and use for needs civil aviation, and it didn't work out.

11. When the Internet appeared, the base became widely known outside of Arizona and America. Among other things, Russian aviation enthusiasts also got to Google pictures, "declassifying" many interesting models of aircraft that no one had even heard of before.

12. Although all these thousands and thousands of planes standing in the middle of the desert form a cemetery, they cannot be called completely abandoned. The Americans managed to make a profitable business out of this.

13. The Davis-Monten base is occupied by the 309th group of the US Department of Defense, which employs about five hundred people involved in the repair of aircraft.

14. Every year, about 400 new pieces of equipment appear at the base. In order to prevent the cemetery from growing to half the state, about the same number of aircraft are sold to friendly but poor countries or destroyed.

15. Under the Strategic Arms Reduction Agreement (START), signed between the United States and Russia, 365 Boeing B-2 Stratofortress bombers were destroyed here.

16. Each aircraft entering storage at the Davis-Monten base is subjected to a thorough inspection, weapons and secret equipment are dismantled from it, and the fuel systems are drained and pumped with oil.

17. The entire fleet of equipment can be divided into four groups: long-term and short-term conservation (potentially combat-ready equipment), donor aircraft and equipment for sale. In the latter category, sometimes there is also a non-flying military equipment. For example, last year to bring here unused, but decommissioned by age, military Hummers.

18. The management of the base decided to sell them via the Internet, but only a few units were bought - these cars are not suitable for civilian life and die in captivity: fuel consumption is very high, uncomfortable interior, manual transmission. For some reason, I remembered with what frenzy compatriots rush to decommissioned military UAZ vehicles and BRDMs. Although it is not surprising, there are almost no such shit in America where a more or less decent SUV from a car dealership will not pass.

19. But America knows how to do business: for every dollar spent on the maintenance of the aircraft cemetery and the aircraft repair team, the air base earns 11.

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The world's largest aircraft graveyard is located in Arizona, Tucson, USA. His official name- "309 group for the maintenance and repair of aerospace equipment." The area of ​​the object is about 10 km2. There are more than four thousand aircraft and about forty space ones mothballed at one time or another. Engines, ammunition, wiring, electronics and other equipment, which is a removed from them. The total cost of all the equipment located here is estimated at more than 35 billion dollars.

Aircraft storage conditions

The Aircraft Graveyard in Arizona is part of the Davis-Montan Air Force Base, built almost immediately after the end of World War II. It should be noted that the area is located on a significant area. In this regard, the climate here is very dry, which makes it possible to save aircraft bodies from corrosion even under conditions of storage under open sky. About eighty percent of them have already been cut into scrap metal. The rest of the planes are sealed with polyethylene and can be used at any time if the need arises.

Significance for the American economy

The Arizona Aircraft Graveyard also functions as a real processing plant. In particular, throughout recent years base specialists reconstructed about nineteen thousand elements and spare parts that can be used in the future or sold. Their total cost is over 568 million US dollars. According to the policy of the US government, other countries can buy here not only components, but also entire airliners. According to economists' calculations, every dollar invested in this aircraft graveyard returns eleven times more to the state treasury over time. The fact is that after repairs carried out by local specialists, many of them are used again. In particular, based on official statistics, over the past 25 years, about twenty percent of the liners sent here have returned to service. This aircraft cemetery is also known for the fact that it was here that some scenes from the fantastic movie “Transformers. Revenge of the fallen."

Russian aircraft graveyard

A similar place exists in our country. On the Khodynka field, which is not far from Moscow, there are helicopters and planes that have not taken off since 2003. They are stored on its territory. At present, access to outsiders is closed here. Initially, it was planned to open equipment at this place, but later the project was frozen and is in this state in our time. Now the aircraft cemetery on the Khodynka field is a huge territory, which is surrounded by barbed wire and guarded. Despite this, some still manage to negotiate with the guards for a fee and take unique photos here against the backdrop of dilapidated aircraft. Despite the fact that most of them are devoid of paint and glass, they still look fascinating.