The White Elephant Fleet
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Mechanics scavenge parts from outdated planes to go on others the Air Force wants to retire but can’t. Congress has ordered that they remain in service.
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. — It is only 7 a.m., but John Nimrichter has been pulling parts from outdated military airplanes for an hour already. “These things get sizzling hot,” he says, looking up at a 1950s-era B-52 bomber sitting on the baked desert just south of Tucson. “You’ll lose your breath.”
Driving up and down endless rows of mothballed fighters, bombers, helicopters and cargo planes, Nimrichter and a crew of 63 fellow Air Force mechanics mine them for replacement parts for aircraft still in use.
Many pieces go into planes on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan, a cheaper way to repair them than buying new parts. But increasingly, the salvaged parts from the Arizona installation known as “the boneyard” are keeping together aircraft the Air Force doesn’t want anymore: B-52s produced in the 1950s; cargo planes from the ’60s; in-air refueling tankers dating to the 1950s and ’60s.
Even as the Air Force is struggling to find money for new fighters, bombers, tankers and cargo planes, it estimates it will spend close to $1.6 billion over the next five years just to maintain aircraft it wants to jettison. It can’t get rid of them — and free up money for new aircraft — because often the older aircraft have been given special protections by Congress.
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