Mothball Fleet? Scrap Metal or Historical Museum?

[GSeybold]

This is such a cool place in California. The Mothball Fleet.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...15/MN39732.DTL and search for pics. I dig this kind of stuff. I used to drive over the freeway and see this from a distance and Huel Howser's Califnorian Gold did a spot on this. Really cool.

What should we do about it? Scrap them for parts? Create a floating museum? Of couse this is after we figure out the environmental issue.

Just some more useless dribble. I seem to be good at that these days....

[Wayne Luke]

I'd say museum but you don't need every ship, just one of each class.

We have an airpark locally since the area was built on Aerospace. Just about every aircraft we fly has been built, modified or designed here. Latest ones are the F-117, B2, F-16, F-22, B1-B, SR-71, YF-22 and the Space Shuttle. Anyway one of the cities has leased land from the federal manufacturing plant and built an air-park. They have just many different U.S. military planes. It all started around an SR-71 that the city bought from Uncle Sam after it was retired and grew from there. Now the city has submitted a bid to purchase one of the Space Shuttle Orbiters when they are retired.

[GSeybold]

I agree Wayne. I think that would be a neat museum.

My father used to work on many of those aircrafts you cited. Last being the Steath. He worked at Lockheed in Palmdale for many years and then offsite for the Steath. Pretty cool stuff. My living room is filled with pictures of those planes and my dad's crew. Every once in awhile PBS will air a "Skunk Works" segment and I don't remember them mentioning this airpark.

Do you know of a website for this airpark?

Thank you.. brought back some great memories.

[Wayne Luke]

If you call Lockheed these days, they will say the Skunkworks division was officially closed. In fact they had some offsite administration offices that were closed a few years ago. However they repaint the skunks on the sides of the hangers every year. I have a friend there who is an engineer designing new supersonic aircraft.

http://www.cityofpalmdale.org/airpark/

I understand many of the aircraft at the park had been standing derelict out at Edwards AFB for many years. Which probably explains why there isn't an F-4 or A-10 on display.

Hehe... I have a notebook of all the planes that my Grandfather worked on and helped design through the 50s and 60s. He was one of the Airforce contractors who oversaw the production at Plant 42 in those years so he had access to the Lockheed, Northrup and McDonnell Douglas areas of the plant. One of the highlights of his career was watching the brief flight of the YB-49 project. The first flying wing.

Lancaster is focusing on their Aerospace Walk of Honor project but has several static display aircraft around the city.

[GSeybold]

Wow thanks for this info.! I'll have to send this info to my siblings. If you ever get a chance, the Discovery Channel airs a documentary on Lockheed's history all the way back to it's begininng up through the Skunk Works-steath technology. There is a lot of personel footage, civilian and AF, heck maybe your grandfather's in this documentary? I'll have to admit that I looked for my dad a few times. It's a great hour and I learned a lot of what my dad was never able to share with me for security reasons. Pretty cool stuff. Are all the Plant 42 hangers still there? I haven't been back there in a few years.

I few years ago while driving on P and I believe 20th, a B2B flew real low over my head while I was driving. Man you haven't lived until that happens. I could see the pilot! It was frightening and amazing at the same time. I think they were buzzing the tower, MY tower! LOL I was 7 months pregnant and nearly dropped my child right then. LOL Till this day, I think it was a B2B but I was never really sure as it went by so fast, just a big black fast loud plane. His flight path was northwest so again, until this day, I couldn't figure out his landing pattern, perhaps he was practicing his T and G's? I dunno? One of those moments of a lifetime-even better than seeing the space shuttle land and EAFB. The desk I'm sitting at now is an old mental Tanker desk for Lockheed-1950's or so.

I made a few calls about the mothball fleet in No. Ca., and it looks like it pretty mired in environmetal problems so you know what that means, nothing constructive will be done for another 15 years until all the polictics are figured out.

Thanks again for this info Wayne. I really enjoyed seeing the sites and going down memory lane a bit.

[Wayne Luke]

All the hangars are still there though Site 9 and the Space Shuttle hanger (don't know its site number off hand) are not currently being used. Primary work is at Lockheed's plant which is actually off-base but shares the runways and Site 4 which is used for B-2 Maintenance.

They still do low level flights of the B-2 in stealth mode at like 6 a.m. Kind of unnerving to see a plane that large flying at tree top level and not hearing it coming. I remember when I was a kid seeing the SR-71 flying over my school with its chaser planes. All of a sudden the SR-71 hit its afterburners and was gone. Made it look like the chasers were standing still.

[GSeybold]

Yes Thanks! That was the name of the plane that buzzed me> The SR71~ I can't believe I forgot about that one. What a grand plane that was. I'm just south of Patrick Air Force base now and they do a lot of low touch and goes there. Its great to watch but scary as heck. Most of time it's cargo trainers C130's but these fat cats look pretty ominous flying low, slow and loud. They fly out to the east (ocean), bank hard south-southwest in a low position and over heavily population residential areas. I till haven't figure out how that pattern was authorized and why it is allowed over residential areas. Different rules for different states I guess. Makes me a bit nervous though.

I was sitting on the balcony of friend's beach condo, 15th floor, for the last space shuttle launch. It was awsome. Right on Cocoa Beach, and the shuttle was just to the left of us. It was amazing to see. We didn't even need binoculars. So in my life time, I've had the great privledge of watching the space shuttle take off and land on the east coast and west.

If you have get a chance to visit Florida, the Kenedy Space center is really neat, getting better every year.