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This was posted over on WIX (Warbird Information Exchange) and I thought I would share it here. It's a video montage of photos from the aviation boneyard at Kingman, Arizona in the years immediately following WWII. 10,000+ airplanes were flown to the War Assets Administration's Sales and Storage Depot 41 at Kingman; most of them to be scrapped as surplus. There are some really great photos of wartime nose art shown in the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TJk1jqzjYU
Thanks Zack. Would be very interested in hearing from any aircrew that recognise their aircraft from the nose art and hearing about some history or anecdotal info.
A well done video, but a bit sad too.
Thanks for posting Zack.
Two young to have been involved in any of the aircraft, but I did notice two major historical items.
The first, at about 25 seconds in, appears to be an aerial shot of the Douglas XB-19. It was kind of a transitional aircraft between the B-17/B-24 and the B-29...though, as you can see from the video, it's bigger than the B-29.
That shot was fairly short, but the B-17 "Five Grand" is shown a bit more. The Five Grand was the 5,000th B-17 produced at Boeing's Seattle factory, and was signed by more than 35,000 Boeing employees. Word was that the drag of the uneven paint slowed the plane by about five knots.
http://www.wanttaja.com/5grand.jpg
Unlike the XB-19, Five Grand did see combat....78 missions. It was brought back to the States after the war, but the Army didn't have any mechanism for saving historical aircraft at the time. So it ended up in the boneyard.
Ron Wanttaja
notice the on-site smelter to melt'em down into ingots? i spent some time at kingman a few years back. talked to a guy said he remembered folks low-ball bidding some of the aircraft, draining the avgas, pulling the engines and props by cutting the engine mounts, giving airframes to the smelters. the smelter folks didn't want to take the time to drain the gas but couldn't melt them with it in!
That is a well done video. I was at Kingman Airport for the first time last year, and took some photos of the airliners stored there. My visit got me into a learning curve about the aircraft disposal process there after World War II. I'm still learning about the enormous number of aircraft sent there, and to other disposal sites around the country. It's a fascinating story about the end to thousands of magnificent aircraft.
http://www.planesofthepast.com/aircr...after-wwii.htm
http://www.planesofthepast.com/kingman-airport.htm
Thanks for posting Zack, it seems like such a waste and shame to destroy those AC. I would like to see the still shots...Quote:
Originally Posted by Zack Baughman